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I have a psql script that has lots of inserts, and I want one of the numbers I insert into a table to be relative to a specific number that I draw from a table.

I tried to do it as following:

select @max_a = max(a) + 1 from tableA;
insert into ... values (@max_a + 5)

but I get an error on the first select statement (ERROR: syntax error at or near "@").

I tried to replace it with

  set @max_a = (select max(a) + 1 from tableA);

but that didn't work either (I get ERROR: syntax error at or near "@").

Any ideas?

Improve this question
5
  • Please share your error Commented May 9, 2016 at 18:27
  • Why cant you do it like this insert into yourtable(column) select max(a) + 1 from tableA Commented May 9, 2016 at 18:33
  • @GavinCattell done. cableload, don't want to do multiple selects like this, I want to set that value as a variable to use multiple times. Commented May 9, 2016 at 18:47
  • I've not seen that use of variables in SQL before. In the above case I'd create dynamic SQL, or use a temporary table to store the value during execution. Commented May 9, 2016 at 18:59
  • 2
    If you want to reuse the variable, you probably want to consider using plpgsql The type of assignment you are looking is not available in postgresql (that is within sql) Commented May 9, 2016 at 19:05
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