Question

What do others do to simplify the creation of simple, serial surrogate keys populated by a SEQUENCE (a.k.a. GENERATOR) in Firebird >= 2.1? I finc the process comparatively arduous:

For example, in PostgreSQL, I simply type:

pg> CREATE TABLE tbl (
  >   id SERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  > ...

In MySQL, I simply type:

my> CREATE TABLE tbl (
  >   id INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  > ...

But in Firebird I type:

fb> CREATE TABLE tbl (
  >   id BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  > ...

fb> CREATE SEQUENCE tbl_id_seq;

fb> SET TERM !!;
  > CREATE TRIGGER tbl_id_trg FOR tbl
  > ACTIVE BEFORE INSERT POSITION 0
  > AS
  > BEGIN
  >   IF ((new.id IS NULL) OR (new.id <= 0)) THEN
  >   BEGIN
  >     new.id = GEN_ID(tbl_id_seq, 1);
  >   END
  > END !!
  > SET TERM ; !!

… and I get pretty bored by the time I reach trigger definition. However, I routinely make SEQUENCE-backed ID fields for temporary, development and throw-away tables. What do others do to simplify this? Work with an IDE? Run a pre-processing, in-house perl script over the DDL file? Etc.

Answer 1

Use IBExpert and you can make it in 4 clicks

I think SEQUENCE is in the SQL Standard.