Unique constraint for permutations across multiple columns

Question

Given the following three columns in a Postgres database: first, second, third; how can I create a constraint such that permutations are unique?

E.g. If (\'foo

Answer 1

You can do this by creating a unique index on a function which returns a sorted array of the values in the columns:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION sorted_array(anyarray)
RETURNS anyarray
AS $BODY$
  SELECT array_agg(x) FROM (SELECT unnest($1) AS x FROM test ORDER BY x) AS y;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE sql IMMUTABLE;

CREATE UNIQUE index ON test (sorted_array(array[first,second,third]));