"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
> Now, I know I can specify a constraint name inside the alter command,
> but I still expected this to work.
It does, in 8.0.
regression=# create table foo (id1 int, id2 int, id3 int);
CREATE TABLE
regression=# ALTER TABLE foo ADD unique (id1,id2);
NOTICE: ALTER TABLE / ADD UNIQUE will create implicit index "foo_id1_key" for table "foo"
ALTER TABLE
regression=# ALTER TABLE foo ADD unique (id1,id3);
NOTICE: ALTER TABLE / ADD UNIQUE will create implicit index "foo_id1_key1" for table "foo"
ALTER TABLE
regression=#
Of course there's no free lunch: it's significantly harder to guess what
the index name will be...
regards, tom lane