Postgres date overlapping constraint

Question

I have a table like this:

date_start    date_end     account_id    product_id
2001-01-01    2001-01-31   1             1
2001-02-01    2001-02-20   1                 


        

Answer 1

This is a difficult problem because constraints can only reference the "current row", and may not contain subqueries. (otherwise the trivial solution would be to add some NOT EXISTS() subquery in the check)

A check constraint specified as a column constraint should reference that column's value only, while an expression appearing in a table constraint can reference multiple columns.

Currently, CHECK expressions cannot contain subqueries nor refer to variables other than columns of the current row.

Popular work-arounds are: use a trigger function which does the dirty work (or use the rule system, which is deprecated by most people)

Because most people favor triggers, I'll repost a rule-system hack here... (it does not have the extra "id" key element, but that's a minor detail)

-- Implementation of A CONSTRAINT on non-overlapping datetime ranges
-- , using the Postgres rulesystem.
-- We need a shadow-table for the ranges only to avoid recursion in the rulesystem.
-- This shadow table has a canary variable with a CONSTRAINT (value=0) on it
-- , and on changes to the basetable (that overlap with an existing interval)
-- an attempt is made to modify this variable. (which of course fails)

-- CREATE SCHEMA tmp;
DROP table tmp.dates_shadow CASCADE;
CREATE table tmp.dates_shadow
    ( time_begin timestamp with time zone
    , time_end timestamp with time zone
    , overlap_canary INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' CHECK (overlap_canary=0)
    )
    ;
ALTER table tmp.dates_shadow
    ADD PRIMARY KEY (time_begin,time_end)
    ;

DROP table tmp.dates CASCADE;
CREATE table tmp.dates
    ( time_begin timestamp with time zone
    , time_end timestamp with time zone
    , payload varchar
    )
    ;

ALTER table tmp.dates
    ADD PRIMARY KEY (time_begin,time_end)
    ;

CREATE RULE dates_i AS
    ON INSERT TO tmp.dates
    DO ALSO (
    -- verify shadow
    UPDATE tmp.dates_shadow ds
        SET overlap_canary= 1
        WHERE (ds.time_begin, ds.time_end) OVERLAPS ( NEW.time_begin, NEW.time_end)
        ;
    -- insert shadow
    INSERT INTO tmp.dates_shadow (time_begin,time_end)
        VALUES (NEW.time_begin, NEW.time_end)
        ;
    );


CREATE RULE dates_d AS
    ON DELETE TO tmp.dates
    DO ALSO (
    DELETE FROM tmp.dates_shadow ds
        WHERE ds.time_begin = OLD.time_begin
        AND ds.time_end = OLD.time_end
        ;
    );

CREATE RULE dates_u AS
    ON UPDATE TO tmp.dates
    WHERE NEW.time_begin <> OLD.time_begin
    AND NEW.time_end <> OLD.time_end
    DO ALSO (
    -- delete shadow
    DELETE FROM tmp.dates_shadow ds
        WHERE ds.time_begin = OLD.time_begin
        AND ds.time_end = OLD.time_end
        ;
    -- verify shadow
    UPDATE tmp.dates_shadow ds
        SET overlap_canary= 1
        WHERE (ds.time_begin, ds.time_end) OVERLAPS ( NEW.time_begin, NEW.time_end)
        ;
    -- insert shadow
    INSERT INTO tmp.dates_shadow (time_begin,time_end)
        VALUES (NEW.time_begin, NEW.time_end)
        ;
    );


INSERT INTO tmp.dates(time_begin,time_end) VALUES
  ('2011-09-01', '2011-09-10')
, ('2011-09-10', '2011-09-20')
, ('2011-09-20', '2011-09-30')
    ;
SELECT * FROM tmp.dates;


EXPLAIN ANALYZE
INSERT INTO tmp.dates(time_begin,time_end) VALUES ('2011-09-30', '2011-10-04')
    ;

INSERT INTO tmp.dates(time_begin,time_end) VALUES ('2011-09-02', '2011-09-04')
    ;

SELECT * FROM tmp.dates;
SELECT * FROM tmp.dates_shadow;