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POLogs with arbitrary numbers of entries in PostgreSQL
 

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  1. POLogs with arbitrary numbers of entries in PostgreSQL
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    <p>I'm designing a db in PostgreSQL that primarily stores info about different people. I'd like to associate a log with each person, consisting of the date and a text entry. Logs can have arbitrary numbers of entries. Here's the ideas I've toyed with:</p> <ol> <li><p>What I think I want is a <code>log_table</code> like this:</p> <pre><code>person_id | row_num | row_date | row_text ----------------------------------------- 1 | 1 | 01/01/12 | Blah... 2 | 1 | 01/02/12 | Foo... 1 | 2 | 01/04/12 | Bar... </code></pre></li> </ol> <p>But I don't know how to get <code>row_num</code> to increment properly; it should default to one more than the largest current <code>row_num</code> for that person_id. In other words, the <code>row_num</code>s for a given <code>person_id</code> should be sequential.</p> <ol> <li><p>Or I can just have <code>row_num</code> increment regardless of <code>person_id</code> so that every log entry has a distinct row number. But it doesn't seem very satisfying to have <code>person_id</code> 1's log jump from row 1 to row 3, and this could also make errors hard to spot.</p></li> <li><p>My last idea is to include the log directly in the <code>person</code> table, by making a composite type <code>log_entry = (date, text)</code>. Then a column <code>log</code> in the <code>person</code> table can store an array:</p> <pre><code>person_id | name | log ---------------------- 1 | Bob | {(01/01/12, Blah...), (01/04/12, Bar...)} </code></pre></li> </ol> <p>But this seems cumbersome.</p> <p>So my questions are, a) which solution if any is good design; b) any way to solve the auto-incrementing problem for solution 1? If it matters, this is a small db for personal use; I want good structure but it's highly likely I'll be the only user. Thanks so much for any help!</p>
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