Question

I have such table:

CREATE TABLE employee (
    id INTEGER DEFAULT NEXTVAL('ids'::regclass) NOT NULL,
    name CHARACTER VARYING NOT NULL,
    employer INTEGER DEFAULT (-1)
);

And I want to insert sth into this table (I want to leave employer as default, -1):

INSERT INTO employee (name, id) VALUES('Doe', 2);

but my PostgreSQL 9.1 is complaining:

ERROR:  insert or update on table "employee" violates foreign key constraint "FK_employer"
DETAIL:  Key (employer)=(-1) is not present in table "employer".

I know that theres no employer with id = -1 but still, I want it that way. I want to set employer as -1 for this emplyee. Is it possible with postgreSQL?

Answer 1

Make the default null. Is it good?

employer INTEGER DEFAULT null