Thanks for all of the suggestions. Once we actually have an application
(I 'm beginning to start on that now after 8 years of data cleanup), the
separate table and trigger mechanism would probably work best for user
interaction. I 'll have to experiment when I get to that point.
As it is right now, I need a simple way of allowing most spreadsheet =
data
(which myself and one other guy have to load) to get into the database, =
so
user-friendly handling and error messages aren 't that important.
So, as a quick fix, that works, I created the unique index with a =
decode.
(The asktom site said the decode was quicker than case).
Being out of production DBA and development for 8 years, I 'm behind the
times and starting to play catch-up, and I was thinking that a unique
index had to have all indexed columns be unique, I didn 't realize that
nulls were more or less ignored (and also makes a smaller index).
-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- --
Bill Ferguson
U.S. Geological Survey - Minerals Information Team
PO Box 25046, MS-750
Denver, Colorado 80225
Voice (303)236-8747 ext. 321 Fax (303)236-4208
~ Think on a grand scale, start to implement on a small scale ~
--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
