PG UPDATE question

Started by Jeff Buteraabout 25 years ago2 messagesgeneral
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#1Jeff Butera
jbutera@linus.highpoint.edu

I'm new to postgres and am having an UPDATE problem when
using a join. I've got two tables like so:

CREATE TABLE QUESTION_ANSWERS (
QUESTIONS_ID int4 NOT NULL, -- question ID
ANSWERS_ID int4 NOT NULL, -- answer ID
CORRECT boolean
);

CREATE TABLE STUDENT_ANSWERS (
STUDENTS_ID int4 NOT NULL, -- student ID
QUESTIONS_ID int4 NOT NULL, -- question ID
ANSWERS_ID int4 NOT NULL, -- answer ID
CORRECT boolean
);

The table QUESTION_ANSWERS is completely populated. The table
STUDENT_ANSWERS has all fields except CORRECT populated. I want to
write an update that'll copy CORRECT from QUESTION_ANSWERS into
STUDENT_ANSWERS when the IDs match. Here's what I wrote:

UPDATE STUDENT_ANSWERS SET CORRECT=QA.CORRECT
FROM QUESTION_ANSWERS QA,STUDENT_ANSWERS SA
WHERE SA.CORRECT=null
AND SA.QUESTIONS_ID=QA.QUESTIONS_ID
AND SA.ANSWERS_ID=QA.ANSWERS_ID;

It executes without an error and correctly returns the count of the
records in the join, but the CORRECT field in STUDENT_ANSWERS is
populated entirely with false regardless of what CORRECT is
QUESTION_ANSWERS.

Can anyone shed light on what I'm missing?

--
Jeff Butera, Ph.D. Junk e-mail is like
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#2Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Jeff Butera (#1)
Re: PG UPDATE question

Jeff Butera <jbutera@linus.highpoint.edu> writes:

UPDATE STUDENT_ANSWERS SET CORRECT=QA.CORRECT
FROM QUESTION_ANSWERS QA,STUDENT_ANSWERS SA
WHERE SA.CORRECT=null
AND SA.QUESTIONS_ID=QA.QUESTIONS_ID
AND SA.ANSWERS_ID=QA.ANSWERS_ID;

What you've got here is a three-way join between QUESTION_ANSWERS and
two instances of STUDENT_ANSWERS (the update target and the SA alias).
I doubt that's what you want. FROM in update should only be used for
*additional* tables. The target table has no alias and must be spelled
out:

UPDATE STUDENT_ANSWERS SET CORRECT=QA.CORRECT
FROM QUESTION_ANSWERS QA
WHERE STUDENT_ANSWERS.CORRECT=null
AND STUDENT_ANSWERS.QUESTIONS_ID=QA.QUESTIONS_ID
AND STUDENT_ANSWERS.ANSWERS_ID=QA.ANSWERS_ID;

regards, tom lane