The identification and deleting of the records using ctids seems to have worked 
fine.  
Thanks !

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Colson [mailto:a...@squeakycode.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 1:55 PM
To: Thom Brown
Cc: Gauthier, Dave; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Deleting one of 2 identical records

On 9/6/2011 12:44 PM, Thom Brown wrote:
> On 6 September 2011 18:39, Gauthier, Dave <dave.gauth...@intel.com
> <mailto:dave.gauth...@intel.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi:____
>
>     __ __
>
>     If I have a table that has 2 records which are identical with regard
>     to all their column values, is there a way to delete one of them,
>     leaving one remaining?  Is there some unique record_id key of some
>     sort I can use for somethign like this?____
>
>     __ __
>
>     Thanks in Advance!____
>
>
> Yes, identify them by their ctid value.
>
> So get the ctids by running:
>
> SELECT ctid, *
> FROM my_table
> WHERE <clause to identify duplicate rows>
>
> You will see entries which look like "(7296,11)".
>
> You can then delete the row by referencing it in the DELETE statement.
>   For example:
>
> DELETE FROM my_table
> WHERE ctid = '(7296,11)';
>
> It's a shame we don't have a LIMIT on the DELETE clause (looks at hackers).
>
> --
> Thom Brown
> Twitter: @darkixion
> IRC (freenode): dark_ixion
> Registered Linux user: #516935
>
> EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
> The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

I wonder.. using the new writeable cte's, could you:

with x (
   -- id = 5 has two identical rows, but limit 1
   select * from orig where id = 5 limit 1;
)
delete from x;

-Andy

-- 
Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general

Reply via email to