Re: select issue with order v8.1

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Terry <td3201@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Terry <td3201@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 10:30 PM, Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 8:50 PM, Terry <td3201@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have an application that is doing something stupid in that it is
>>>>> tacking on its own order clause at the end of the statement I am
>>>>> providing.
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, I am putting this statement in:
>>>>> select ev_id,type,ev_time,category,error,ev_text,userid,ex_long,client_ex_long,ex_text
>>>>> from clients_event_log limit 100
>>>>>
>>>>> It is tacking on ORDER BY ev_id.  The problem is that isn't per the
>>>>> syntax.  Can anyone think of anything clever to get around this stupid
>>>>> application doing what it is doing?  For example, anything I can do
>>>>> beside limit?
>>>>>
>>>>> I appreciate the thoughts!
>>>>
>>>> You could either wrap it in a subselect or make a view.
>>>>
>>>> select * from (select
>>>> ev_id,type,ev_time,category,error,ev_text,userid,ex_long,client_ex_long,ex_text
>>>> from clients_event_log limit 100) as a
>>>>
>>>> and an order by tacked on the end of that is ok.
>>>>
>>>
>>> This and the previous poster's advice both worked.  Thank you.
>>> However, I am having another issue where the application is not
>>> viewing a 'serial' data type as a number.  Clearly none of this is a
>>> postgres issue.  Stupid programming.
>>>
>>
>> Based on my above comment.  Is there a way to create a view or
>> something that presents the serial column as an integer?  In the end,
>> that's what it is but on the insert side it is incrementing the number
>> for the underlying app.  I'm not a SQL guy but that's my understanding
>> anyways.  I could even perhaps do a table copy process and simply make
>> the destination type an integer rather than a serial?    Just thinking
>> out loud.  Anyone have an idea here?
>
> You could alter it to an int, then create a sequence with the same
> start as the old sequence and assign it as default for the int.
>

I am somewhat confused.  My app is detecting it as a serial data type
but describing the table shows that its an integer.  What am I
missing?

dssystem=# \d clients_event_log
                                       Table "public.clients_event_log"
     Column     |          Type           |
 Modifiers
----------------+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
 ev_id          | integer                 | not null default
nextval('clients_event_log_ev_id_seq'::regclass)