Question

I’m using HSQLDB for in memory database tests and I’ve run into problems when using UUID’s as primary keys. I want my primary key to be generated by the database. The generated UUID doesn’t have to be a real uuid, it just has to go to a varchar column.

I’ve tried UUID function that should exists according to this documentation: http://hsqldb.org/doc/guide/builtinfunctions-chapt.html

alter table owner alter column id set default UUID();

But it just says that UUID is unexpected token.

Any clues?

Answer 1

You can use a trigger for UUID column values.

CREATE TABLE OWNER ( ID BINARY(16) DEFAULT X'' PRIMARY KEY , VAL VARCHAR(10))
CREATE TRIGGER TRIG BEFORE INSERT ON OWNER REFERENCING NEW ROW AS NEW FOR EACH ROW SET NEW.ID = UUID();

Note the column needs a default, but this default is overwritten by the UUID()