Swap unique indexed column values in database

Question

I have a database table and one of the fields (not the primary key) is having a unique index on it. Now I want to swap values under this column for two rows. How could this

Answer 1

Oracle has deferred integrity checking which solves exactly this, but it is not available in either SQL Server or MySQL.

Answer 2

In SQL Server, the MERGE statement can update rows that would normally break a UNIQUE KEY/INDEX. (Just tested this because I was curious.)

However, you'd have to use a temp table/variable to supply MERGE w/ the necessary rows.

Answer 3

Further to Andy Irving's answer

this worked for me (on SQL Server 2005) in a similar situation where I have a composite key and I need to swap a field which is part of the unique constraint.

key: pID, LNUM rec1: 10, 0 rec2: 10, 1 rec3: 10, 2

and I need to swap LNUM so that the result is

key: pID, LNUM rec1: 10, 1 rec2: 10, 2 rec3: 10, 0

the SQL needed:

UPDATE    DOCDATA    
SET       LNUM = CASE LNUM
              WHEN 0 THEN 1
              WHEN 1 THEN 2 
              WHEN 2 THEN 0 
          END
WHERE     (pID = 10) 
  AND     (LNUM IN (0, 1, 2))

Answer 4

I think you should go for solution 2. There is no 'swap' function in any SQL variant I know of.

If you need to do this regularly, I suggest solution 1, depending on how other parts of the software are using this data. You can have locking issues if you're not careful.

But in short: there is no other solution than the ones you provided.

Answer 5

For Oracle there is an option, DEFERRED, but you have to add it to your constraint.

SET CONSTRAINT emp_no_fk_par DEFERRED; 

To defer ALL constraints that are deferrable during the entire session, you can use the ALTER SESSION SET constraints=DEFERRED statement.

Source

Answer 6

The magic word is DEFERRABLE here:

DROP TABLE ztable CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE ztable
    ( id integer NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
    , payload varchar
    );
INSERT INTO ztable(id,payload) VALUES (1,'one' ), (2,'two' ), (3,'three' );
SELECT * FROM ztable;


    -- This works, because there is no constraint
UPDATE ztable t1
SET payload=t2.payload
FROM ztable t2
WHERE t1.id IN (2,3)
AND t2.id IN (2,3)
AND t1.id <> t2.id
    ;
SELECT * FROM ztable;

ALTER TABLE ztable ADD CONSTRAINT OMG_WTF UNIQUE (payload)
    DEFERRABLE INITIALLY DEFERRED
    ;

    -- This should also work, because the constraint 
    -- is deferred until "commit time"
UPDATE ztable t1
SET payload=t2.payload
FROM ztable t2
WHERE t1.id IN (2,3)
AND t2.id IN (2,3)
AND t1.id <> t2.id
    ;
SELECT * FROM ztable;

RESULT:

DROP TABLE
NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE / PRIMARY KEY will create implicit index "ztable_pkey" for table "ztable"
CREATE TABLE
INSERT 0 3
 id | payload
----+---------
  1 | one
  2 | two
  3 | three
(3 rows)

UPDATE 2
 id | payload
----+---------
  1 | one
  2 | three
  3 | two
(3 rows)

NOTICE:  ALTER TABLE / ADD UNIQUE will create implicit index "omg_wtf" for table "ztable"
ALTER TABLE
UPDATE 2
 id | payload
----+---------
  1 | one
  2 | two
  3 | three
(3 rows)