Constraint - one boolean row is true, all other rows false

Question

I have a column: standard BOOLEAN NOT NULL

I would like to enforce one row True, and all others False. The are no FK's or anything else depending on this constraint. I know I can accomplish it with plpgsql, but this seems like a sledgehammer. I would prefer something like a CHECK or UNIQUE constraint. The simpler the better.

One row must be True, they cannot all be False (so the first row inserted would have to be True).

The row will need to be updated, which means I have to wait to check constraints until updates are done, since all rows may be set False first and one row True afterwards.

There is a FK between products.tax_rate_id and tax_rate.id, but it has nothing to do with the default or standard tax rate, which is user selectable to ease creating new products..

PostgreSQL 9.5 if it matters.

Background

The table is the tax rate. One of the tax rates is the default (standard since default is a Postgres command). When a new product is added, the standard tax rate is applied to the product. If there is no standard, the database must either do a guess or all kinds of unneeded checks. The simple solution, I thought, was to make sure there is a standard.

By "default" above, I mean for the presentation layer (UI). There is a user option for changing the default tax rate. I either need to add extra checks to ensure the GUI/user does not try to set the tax_rate_id to NULL, or then just set a default tax rate.

Answer 1

Variant 1

Since all you need is a single column with standard = true, set standard to NULL in all other rows. Then a plain UNIQUE constraint works, since NULL values do not violate it:

CREATE TABLE taxrate (
   taxrate int PRIMARY KEY
 , standard bool DEFAULT true
 , CONSTRAINT standard_true_or_null CHECK (standard) -- that's all
 , CONSTRAINT standard_only_1_true UNIQUE (standard)
);

DEFAULT is an optional reminder that the first row entered should become the default. It's not enforcing anything. While you cannot set more than one row to standard = true, you can still set all rows NULL. There is no clean way to prevent this with only constraints in a single table. CHECK constraints do not consider other rows (without dirty tricks).

Related:

• Restrict two specific column values from existing at the same time

• Add constraint to make column unique per group of rows

To update:

BEGIN;
UPDATE taxrate SET standard = NULL WHERE standard;
UPDATE taxrate SET standard = TRUE WHERE taxrate = 2;
COMMIT;

To allow a command like (where the constraint is only satisfied at the end of the statement):

WITH kingdead AS (
   UPDATE taxrate
   SET standard = NULL
   WHERE standard
   )
UPDATE taxrate
SET standard = TRUE
WHERE taxrate = 1;

.. the UNIQUE constraint would have to be DEFERRABLE. See:

• Constraint defined DEFERRABLE INITIALLY IMMEDIATE is still DEFERRED?

dbfiddle here

Variant 2

Have a second table with a single row like:

Create this as superuser:

CREATE TABLE taxrate (
   taxrate int PRIMARY KEY
);

CREATE TABLE taxrate_standard (
   taxrate int PRIMARY KEY REFERENCES taxrate
);

-- singleton!
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX taxrate_standard_singleton ON taxrate_standard ((true));

REVOKE DELETE ON TABLE taxrate_standard FROM public;  -- can't delete

INSERT INTO taxrate (taxrate) VALUES (42);
INSERT INTO taxrate_standard (taxrate) VALUES (42);

Now there is always a single row pointing to the standard (in this simple case also representing the standard rate directly). Only a superuser could break it. You might disallow that, too, with a trigger BEFORE DELETE.

dbfiddle here

Related:

• Constraint to enforce "at least one" or "exactly one" in a database

You might add a VIEW to see the same as in variant 1:

CREATE VIEW taxrate_combined AS
SELECT t.*, (ts.taxrate = t.taxrate) AS standard
FROM   taxrate t
LEFT   JOIN taxrate_standard ts USING (taxrate);

In queries where all you want is the standard rate, use (only) taxrate_standard.taxrate directly.

---

You later added:

There is a FK between products.tax_rate_id and tax_rate.id

A poor man's implementation of variant 2 would be to just add a row to products (or any similar table) pointing to the standard tax rate; a dummy product you might call "Standard tax rate" - if your setup allows it.

The FK constraints enforces referential integrity. To complete it, enforce tax_rate_id IS NOT NULL for the row (if that's not the case for the column in general). And disallow its deletion. Both could be put into triggers. No extra table, but less elegant and not as reliable.

Answer 2

You can use a Filtered index

create table test
(
    id int primary key,
    foo bool
);

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX only_one_row_with_column_true_uix 
    ON test (foo) WHERE (foo);  --> where foo is true

insert into test values (1, false);
insert into test values (2, true);
insert into test values (3, false);
insert into test values (4, false);
insert into test values (5, true);

ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "only_one_row_with_column_true_uix"
DETAIL:  Key (foo)=(t) already exists.

dbfiddle here

---

But as you said, first row must be true, then you could use a CHECK constraint, but even using a function you can delete first row later.

create function check_one_true(new_foo bool)
returns int as
$$
begin
    return 
    (
        select count(*) + (case new_foo when true then 1 else 0 end)
        from test 
        where foo = true
    );
end
$$
language plpgsql stable;

alter table test 
    add constraint ck_one_true check(check_one_true(foo) = 1); 

insert into test values (1, true);
insert into test values (2, false);
insert into test values (3, false);
insert into test values (4, false);

insert into test values (5, true);

ERROR:  new row for relation "test" violates check constraint "ck_one_true"
DETAIL:  Failing row contains (5, t).

select * from test;

id | foo
-: | :--
 1 | t  
 2 | f  
 3 | f  
 4 | f  

delete from test where id = 1;

dbfiddle here

---

You could solve it by adding a BEFORE DELETE trigger to ensure first row (foo is true) is never deleted.

create function dont_delete_foo_true()
returns trigger as
$x$
begin
    if old.foo then
        raise exception 'Can''t delete row where foo is true.';
    end if;
    return old;
end;
$x$ language plpgsql;

create trigger trg_test_delete
before delete on test
for each row 
execute procedure dont_delete_foo_true();

delete from test where id = 1;

ERROR: Can't delete row where foo is true.

dbfiddle here