PostgreSQL Error: Relation already exists

Question

I am trying to create a table that was dropped previously.

But when I do the CREATE TABLE A ... I am getting below error:

Rela

Answer 1

In my case, I had a sequence with the same name.

Answer 2

There should be no single quotes here 'A'. Single quotes are for string literals: 'some value'.
Either use double quotes to preserve the upper case spelling of "A":

CREATE TABLE "A" ...

Or don't use quotes at all:

CREATE TABLE A ...

which is identical to

CREATE TABLE a ...

because all unquoted identifiers are folded to lower case automatically in PostgreSQL.

---

You could avoid problems with the index name completely by using simpler syntax:

CREATE TABLE csd_relationship (
    csd_relationship_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
    type_id integer NOT NULL,
    object_id integer NOT NULL
);

Does the same as your original query, only it avoids naming conflicts automatically. It picks the next free identifier automatically. More about the serial type in the manual.

Answer 3

Another reason why you might get errors like "relation already exists" is if the DROP command did not execute correctly.

One reason this can happen is if there are other sessions connected to the database which you need to close first.

Answer 4

I finally discover the error. The problem is that the primary key constraint name is equal the table name. I don know how postgres represents constraints, but I think the error "Relation already exists" was being triggered during the creation of the primary key constraint because the table was already declared. But because of this error, the table wasnt created at the end.

Answer 5

In my case I was migrating from 9.5 to 9.6. So to restore a database, I was doing :

sudo -u postgres psql -d databse -f dump.sql

Of course it was executing on the old postgreSQL database where there are datas! If your new instance is on port 5433, the correct way is :

sudo -u postgres psql -d databse -f dump.sql -p 5433

Answer 6

In my case, it wasn't until I PAUSEd the batch file and scrolled up a bit, that wasn't the only error I had gotten. My DROP command had become DROP and so the table wasn't dropping in the first place (thus the relation did indeed still exist). The  I've learned is called a Byte Order Mark (BOM). Opening this in Notepad++, re-save the SQL file with Encoding set to UTM-8 without BOM and it runs fine.