PostgreSQL - insert/update violates foreign key constraints

Question

I am a new one in postgreSQL. I have 3 tables, one table references the other 2 table's primary keys. But I couldn't able to insert data into the Table3. See the code below :

DROP TABLE Table1 CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE Table1(
  "DataID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  "AdData" integer DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY ("DataID")
);

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Table2 CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE Table2 (
  "Address" numeric(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  "Value" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY ("Address")
);

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Table3 CASCADE; 
CREATE TABLE table3 (   
  "ID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
  "DataID" bigint DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Address" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Data" bigint DEFAULT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),   
   FOREIGN KEY ("DataID") REFERENCES Table1("DataID") on delete cascade on update cascade,   
   FOREIGN KEY ("Address") REFERENCES Table2("Address") on delete cascade on update cascade
);

ERROR: insert or update on table "Table3" violates foreign key constraint "Table3_DataID_fkey" DETAIL: Key (DataID)=(27856) is not present in table "Table1".

When I trying to insert data into the 3 tables, an error occured. I refer the postgreSQL documentation and change my code as follows: (Unfortunately it shows another error)

DROP TABLE Table1 CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE Table1(
  "DataID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  "AdData" integer DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY ("DataID")
);

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Table2 CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE Table2 (
  "Address" numeric(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  "Value" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY ("Address")
);

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Table3 CASCADE; 
CREATE TABLE table3 (   
  "ID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
  "DataID" bigint DEFAULT NULL REFERENCES Table1 ON DELETE RESTRICT,
  "Address" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL REFERENCES Table2 ON DELETE CASCADE, 
  "Data" bigint DEFAULT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),   
   PRIMARY KEY("DataID", "Address")
);

ERROR: multiple primary keys for table "Table3" are not allowed LINE 65: PRIMARY KEY("DataID", "Address")

Please help me... How I can create the reference?

I change the ID as UNIQUE and removed the line PRIMARY KEY ("ID"). At that time it shows another error like :

ERROR: duplicate key value violates unique constraint "Table3_pkey"

Answer 1

There are a few problems with your tables. I'll try to address the foreign keys first, since you question asked about them :)

But before that, we should realize that the two sets of tables (the first three you created and the second set, which you created after dropping the first set) are the same. Of course, the definition of Table3 in your second attempt has syntax and logical errors, but the basic idea is:

CREATE TABLE table3 (   
  "ID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
  "DataID" bigint DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Address" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Data" bigint DEFAULT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),   
   FOREIGN KEY ("DataID") REFERENCES Table1("DataID") on delete cascade on update cascade,   
   FOREIGN KEY ("Address") REFERENCES Table2("Address") on delete cascade on update cascade
);

This definition tell PostgreSQL roughly the following: "Create a table with four columns, one will be the primary key (PK), the others can be NULL. If a new row is inserted, check DataID and Address: if they contain a non-NULL value (say 27856), then check Table1 for DataID˙and Table2 for Address. If there is no such value in those tables, then return an error." This last point which you've seen first:

ERROR: insert or update on table "Table3" violates foreign key constraint 
    "Table3_DataID_fkey" DETAIL: Key (DataID)=(27856) is not present in table "Table1".

So simple: if there is no row in Table1 where DataID = 27856, then you can't insert that row into Table3.

If you need that row, you should first insert a row into Table1 with DataID = 27856, and only then try to insert into Table3. If this seems to you not what you want, please describe in a few sentences what you want to achieve, and we can help with a good design.

---

And now about the other problems.

You define your PKs as

CREATE all_your_tables (
    first_column NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
    [...]
    PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),  

A primary key means that all the items in it are different from each other, that is, the values are UNIQUE. If you give a static DEFAULT (like '0') to a UNIQUE column, you will experience bad surprises all the time. This is what you got in your third error message.

Furthermore, '0' means a text string, but not a number (bigint or numeric in your case). Use simply 0 instead (or don't use it at all, as I written above).

And a last point (I may be wrong here): in Table2, your Address field is set to numeric(20). At the same time, it is the PK of the table. The column name and the data type suggests that this address can change in the future. If this is true, than it is a very bad choice for a PK. Think about the following scenario: you have an address '1234567890454', which has a child in Table3 like

ID        DataID           Address             Data
123       3216547          1234567890454       654897564134569

Now that address happens to change to something other. How do you make your child row in Table3 follow its parent to the new address? (There are solutions for this, but can cause much confusion.) If this is your case, add an ID column to your table, which will not contain any information from the real world, it will simply serve as an identification value (that is, ID) for an address.

Answer 2

It all depends on what do you want to do with the data.

First example - you want to have consistent data in all tables, but you try to insert values that doesn't match with Table1.

Second example - you don't want to have consistent data, but try to do something else, not exactly know what. Table can't have more than one primary key.

Third example - you still don't know what you want to achieve and put UNIQUE constraint on column that may have he same value multiple times.

If you just want to insert your data - get rid of foreign key references in first example. If you want to have consistent data in all tables - do the data cleanup and then insert in tables WITH foreign key constraints.

tl;dr: to insert your data into Table3 with code from first example - insert missing values into Table1.DataID column that exist in Table3.DataId.