Postgres 9.6.5 - Can I use a query to calculate a value from two columns and insert the calculated value in a new column in the same table?

Question

I am running the following version of Postgres on CentOS 7:

PostgreSQL 9.6.5 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (GCC) 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-11), 64-bit

I am new to database operations and need some help understanding if/how I should do the following:

I have a single table "Table1" that has three columns of data:

| timestamp | Value1 | Value2 |

The Value1 and Value2 columns contain decimal values like the below:

| 1.6732 | 2.78093 |

I have around a million rows of data in this table.

I would like to be able to deduct Value1 from Value2 and insert the result of this calculation in a new column in the same table, so that the table permanently stores the computed value and ends up looking like the below.

timestamp | Value1 | Value2 | Value3 

I am not sure if I can or should do this, and if it is possible, how I would create a query to make this happen.

Please can anyone give any advice, examples or pointers on how I should go about doing this or point me in the right direction of how I can learn to do this myself?

Thank you...

Answer 1

I found the below which seems to have done the trick...

Firstly, I added the Value3 column to Table1 using the below SQL:

ALTER TABLE "Table1" ADD COLUMN Value3 NUMERIC;

Then I ran the below update and set statement:

UPDATE "Table1" SET Value3 = Value2 - Value1;

This updates the Value3 column with the result of Value2 - Value1.