Re: serial column vs. explicit sequence question

Charlie Toohey <ctoohey@pacbell.net> writes:
> A better solution would seem to use a sequence explicitly, rather than a id 
> column of type serial. I would obtain the id value from the sequence, and 
> then insert this id into the master table and into the detail table.

Yup.  But there's no need to change how you create the id column; serial
is just fine, since all it is is a sequence and a DEFAULT nextval('foo').
You just do something like
select nextval('name-of-id-columns-sequence') into $masterid;insert into master(id, ...) values ($masterid, ...);insert
intodetail ... $masterid ...;
 

rather than letting the default expression do it for you.
        regards, tom lane