The following bug has been logged on the website:
Bug reference: 17428
Logged by: Glen Edmonds
Email address: glen.edmonds@gmail.com
PostgreSQL version: 14.2
Operating system: MacOS Monterey 12.2.1
Description:
For a freshly defined sequence, the following:
select last_value from mytable_id_seq
should return 0, but returns 1.
Reasoning: In every case except the uninitialised case, last_value is the
same as the current value of the sequence, which is the same as the number
of rows in the table (assuming no deletions). Logically, if there are no
rows in the table, last_value should return 0 to be consistent.
To reproduce:
create table mytable (
id serial,
other int
);
select (select count(*) from mytable), last_value from mytable_id_seq; -- 0,
1
insert into mytable (other) values (0);
select (select count(*) from mytable), last_value from mytable_id_seq; -- 1,
1
insert into mytable (other) values (0);
select (select count(*) from mytable), last_value from mytable_id_seq; -- 2,
2
insert into mytable (other) values (0);
select (select count(*) from mytable), last_value from mytable_id_seq; -- 3,
3
-- etc
As you can see, only the first row returns different results for the same
expression.
This isn't just theoretical. I was writing some DB units tests and this
caused my code to break, but was also a surprise.
IMHO this is a bug.