title: Renumbering a column in postgresql based on sorted values in that column
body: <p>Edit: I am using postgresql v8.3</p>
  
  <p>I have a table that contains a column we can call column A.</p>
  
  <p>Column A is populated, for our purposes, with arbitrary positive integers.</p>
  
  <p>I want to renumber column A from 1 to N based on ordering the records of the table by column A ascending. (SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY A ASC;)</p>
  
  <p>Is there a simple way to accomplish this without the need of building a postgresql function?</p>
  
  <p>Example:</p>
  
  <p>(Before:
  A: 3,10,20,100,487,1,6)
  (After:
  A: 2,4,5,6,7,1,3)</p>