On 29 May 2011 16:12, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Thom Brown <thombrown@gmail.com> writes:
>> On 10 January 2009 19:22, Raymond O'Donnell <rod@iol.ie> wrote:
>>> On 10/01/2009 19:15, Thom Brown wrote:
>>>> I can't find anything in the documentation, but does anyone know if
>>>> there is a way to rename a constraint?
>
>>> I just tried it with a primary key...
>>>
>>> test=# alter table t1 alter constraint t1_pk rename to t1_pp;
>>> ERROR: syntax error at or near "constraint"
>>> LINE 1: alter constraint t1_pk rename to t1_pp;
>>>
>>> ... and as you can see it didn't work. I suppose you could always drop
>>> and recreate it with a different name.
>
>> While this was a sufficient solution for the problem I was having back
>> then, it will be problematic for those with large tables as it means
>> re-validating the constraint against the entire table.
>
> Use ALTER INDEX RENAME to rename the index underlying the constraint.
> The constraint will follow along.
Not all constraints are based on indexes though.
Thom