Postgres update with an inner join across 2 tables?

IAmYourFaja picture IAmYourFaja · Sep 26, 2012 · Viewed 27.9k times · Source

I have 3 tables in my local Postgres database:

[myschema].[animals]
--------------------
animal_id
animal_attrib_type_id (foreign key to [myschema].[animal_attrib_types])
animal_attrib_value_id (foreign key to [myschema].[animal_attrib_values])

[myschema].[animal_attrib_types]
--------------------------------
animal_attrib_type_id
animal_attrib_type_name

[myschema].[animal_attrib_values]
--------------------------------
animal_attrib_value_id
animal_attrib_value_name

At runtime I will know the animal_id. I need to run SQL to update the animal_attribute_value_name associated with this item, so something like:

UPDATE
    animal_attribute_values aav
SET
    aav.animal_attribute_value_name = 'Some new value'
WHERE
    # Somehow join from the provided animal_id???

I may have to do some kind of nested SELECT or INNER JOIN inside the WHERE clause, but not sure how to do this. Thanks in advance!

Edit:

Let's say I have an animal record with the following values:

[myschema].[animals]
--------------------
animal_id = 458
animal_attrib_type_id = 38
animal_attrib_value_id = 23

And the corresponding animal_attrib_value (with id = 23) has the following values:

[myschema].[animal_attrib_values]
--------------------------------
animal_attrib_value_id = 23
animal_attrib_value_name = 'I am some value that needs to be changed.'

At runtime, I only have the animal_id (458). I need to look up the corresponding animal_attrib_value (23) and change its animal_attrib_value_name to 'Some new value', all inside of a single UPDATE statement.

Answer

wildplasser picture wildplasser · Sep 26, 2012
UPDATE
    animal_attribute_values aav
SET
    animal_attribute_value_name = 'Some new value'
FROM animals aa
WHERE aa.animal_id = 458
AND aa.animal_attrib_value_id = aav.animal_attrib_value_id
  ;