Question

I have this table in a postgres 8.4 database:

CREATE TABLE public.dummy
(
  address_id SERIAL,
  addr1 character(40),
  addr2 character(40),
  city character(25),
  state character(2),
  zip character(5),
  customer boolean,
  supplier boolean,
  partner boolean
  
)
WITH (
  OIDS=FALSE
);

I want to update the table. Initially i tested my query using this insert statement:

insert into address customer,supplier,partner
SELECT  
    case when cust.addr1 is not null then TRUE else FALSE end customer, 
    case when suppl.addr1 is not null then TRUE else FALSE end supplier,
    case when partn.addr1 is not null then TRUE else FALSE end partner
from (
    SELECT *
        from address) pa
    left outer join cust_original cust
        on (pa.addr1=cust.addr1 and pa.addr2=cust.addr2 and pa.city=cust.city 
            and pa.state=cust.state and substring(cust.zip,1,5) = pa.zip  )
    left outer join supp_original suppl 
        on (pa.addr1=suppl.addr1 and pa.addr2=suppl.addr2 and pa.city=suppl.city 
                and pa.state=suppl.state and pa.zip = substring(suppl.zip,1,5))
    left outer join partner_original partn
        on (pa.addr1=partn.addr1 and pa.addr2=partn.addr2 and pa.city=partn.city
                  and pa.state=partn.state and pa.zip = substring(partn.zip,1,5) )
where pa.address_id = address_id

How can I convert this to an update statement, i.e., update existing rows using values returned from a select statement?

Answer 1

Postgres allows:

UPDATE dummy
SET customer=subquery.customer,
    address=subquery.address,
    partn=subquery.partn
FROM (SELECT address_id, customer, address, partn
      FROM  /* big hairy SQL */ ...) AS subquery
WHERE dummy.address_id=subquery.address_id;

This syntax is not standard SQL, but it is much more convenient for this type of query than standard SQL. I believe Oracle (at least) accepts something similar.