Re: serialization errors

> > I'm open to suggestions of a better way to store tree structures in a
> > database ...
>
> Not a better way, per se, but a different way:
> http://searchdatabase.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid13_gci537290,00.html
>
> If you only have two levels, the the adjacency list model will work very
> well. It works well when a maximum depth can be specified.
>
> The order field might be better expressed as a non-primary key column.

That article looks interesting ... I'll have to take a look at it in more
detail.

BTW, the node_id is the primary key, and the node_order is a unique
constraint.

Also, BTW, the inset command looks more like:

INSERT INTO tree_node(parent_id, node_name, node_order)
VALUES(
    1,
    "document",
    (SELECT COALESCE(MAX(node_order),0)+1 FROM tree_node WHERE parent_id = 1)
);


>
> > However, back to serialization issue ... i'm going to take one [snip]
> > more stab at convincing you a uniqueconstraint error should be flagged
> > as a serial error (a "serializable error: unique constraint
> > violated"?)
>
> No it shouldn't. You have attempted to insert duplicate primary keys.
> When you use select max with concurrent transactions, both transactions
> will receive the same value for select max. The second one to insert
> will be inserting a duplicate primary key.
>
> PostgreSQL should say; "unique constraint violated", which it does.

I guess I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but I'm struggling
to understand why it should say unique constraint violated instead of serial.

   BEGIN;
   i = SELECT MAX(node_order)+1 FROM tree_node WHERE parent_id = 1;
   INSERT INTO tree_node(parent_id, node_name, node_order)
   VALUES(1, "name", i);

Why does it make more sense to get a unique constraint violated at this point?
As far as that transaction is concerned, this is completely and perfectly
correct.  When I use a serializable transaction, I would expect all queries
to act internally consistant.

Now, if because of a concurrently commited transaction, this would
violate a unique constraint, and the database can't serialize the transaction,
then well, i should get a serializing error.  Then I try again, and two things
happen:
  1. I'm not smart enough to requery the max id, in which case on try two
     I get the unique contraint violated error.
  2. I requery the max id, and I get a non-unique constraint violated error.


The other thing beneffit of having this return a "serializable error", that
I neglected to mention last time, was that then the user doesn't strictly
have to put in a re-try limiter in the loop.  Currently, if I receive a unique
constraint violated error, there are two reasons it may have happened:
   a) someone else committed an entry
   b) the query I'm attempting is wrong

So, the way it is currently, I have to special case the unique constraint
violated.  If I receive that error consistantly, I don't know if it is
simply because of extremely high activity, or if I have a bug and am
executing a stupid query.

Anyways, now that I know that I can get a unique constraint violated error
in addition to serializable error, i've added the special case code, and
am (un?)happily retrying my queries, with a retry limit.

Thanks!

Ryan
--
Ryan VanderBijl                              rvbijl@vanderbijlfamily.com