Creating a PostgreSQL sequence to a field (which is not the ID of the record)

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Use CREATE SEQUENCE:

CREATE SEQUENCE scores_job_id_seq;  -- = default name for plain a serial

Then add a column default to scores.job_id:

ALTER TABLE scores ALTER COLUMN job_id SET DEFAULT nextval('scores_job_id_seq');

If you want to bind the sequence to the column (so it is deleted when the column is deleted), also run:

ALTER SEQUENCE scores_job_id_seq OWNED BY scores.job_id;

All of this can be replaced with using the pseudo data type serial for the column job_id to begin with:

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If your table already has rows, you may want to set the SEQUENCE to the next highest value and fill in missing serial values in the table:

SELECT setval('scores_job_id_seq', COALESCE(max(job_id), 1)) FROM scores;

Optionally:

UPDATE scores
SET    job_id = nextval('scores_job_id_seq')
WHERE  job_id IS NULL;
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The only remaining difference, a serial column is also set to NOT NULL. You may or may not want that, too: 

ALTER TABLE scores ALTER COLUMN job_id SET NOT NULL;

But you cannot just alter the type of an existing integer: 

ALTER TABLE scores ALTER job_id TYPE serial;

serial is not an actual data type. It’s just a notational convenience feature for CREATE TABLE.
In Postgres 10 or later consider an IDENTITY column:

  • Auto increment table column

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