How to create sequence if not exists

Question

I tried to use code from Check if sequence exists in Postgres (plpgsql).

To create sequence if it does not exists. Running this code two times causes an exception:

sequence ... already exists.

How to create sequence only if it does not exist?

If the sequence does not exist, no message should be written and no error should occur so I cannot use the stored procedure in the other answer to this question since it writes message to log file every time if sequence exists.

do $$
begin

SET search_path = '';
IF not EXISTS (SELECT * FROM pg_class
             WHERE relkind = 'S'
               AND oid::regclass::text = 'firma1.' || quote_ident('myseq'))
  THEN

SET search_path = firma1,public;

create sequence myseq;

END IF;

SET search_path = firma1,public;

end$$;

select nextval('myseq')::int as nr;

Answer 1

Postgres 9.5 or later

IF NOT EXISTS was added to CREATE SEQUENCE in Postgres 9.5. That's the simple solution now:

CREATE SEQUENCE IF NOT EXISTS myschema.myseq; 

But consider details of the outdated answer anyway ...
And you know about serial or IDENTITY columns, right?

• Auto increment table column

Postgres 9.4 or older

Sequences share the namespace with several other table-like objects. The manual:

The sequence name must be distinct from the name of any other sequence, table, index, view, or foreign table in the same schema.

Bold emphasis mine. So there are three cases:

1. Name does not exist. -> Create sequence.
2. Sequence with the same name exists. -> Do nothing? Any output? Any logging?
3. Other conflicting object with the same name exists. -> Do something? Any output? Any logging?

Specify what to do in either case. A DO statement could look like this:

DO $do$ DECLARE    _kind "char"; BEGIN    SELECT relkind    FROM   pg_class    WHERE  oid = 'myschema.myseq'::regclass  -- sequence name, optionally schema-qualified    INTO  _kind;     IF NOT FOUND THEN       -- name is free       CREATE SEQUENCE myschema.myseq;    ELSIF _kind = 'S' THEN  -- sequence exists       -- do nothing?    ELSE                    -- object name exists for different kind       -- do something!    END IF; END $do$; 

Object types (relkind) in pg_class according to the manual:

r = ordinary table
i = index
S = sequence
v = view
m = materialized view
c = composite type
t = TOAST table
f = foreign table

Related:

• How to check if a table exists in a given schema

Answer 2

I went a different route: just catch the exception:

DO $$ BEGIN         CREATE SEQUENCE myseq; EXCEPTION WHEN duplicate_table THEN         -- do nothing, it's already there END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql; 

One nice benefit to this is that you don't need to worry about what your current schema is.

Answer 3

If you don't need to preserve the potentially existing sequence, you could just drop it and then recreate it:

DROP SEQUENCE IF EXISTS id_seq;
CREATE SEQUENCE id_seq;