CREATE TRIGGER
SQL - Language Statements
CREATE TRIGGER
Creates a new trigger
2000-03-25
CREATE TRIGGER name { BEFORE | AFTER } { event [OR ...] }
ON table FOR EACH { ROW | STATEMENT }
EXECUTE PROCEDURE func ( arguments )
1998-09-21
Inputs
name
The name of an existing trigger.
table
The name of a table.
event
One of INSERT, DELETE or UPDATE.
funcname
A user-supplied function.
1998-09-21
Outputs
CREATE
This message is returned if the trigger is successfully created.
1998-09-21
Description
CREATE TRIGGER will enter a new trigger into the current
data base. The trigger will be associated with the relation
relname and will execute
the specified function funcname.
The trigger can be specified to fire either before BEFORE the
operation is attempted on a tuple (before constraints
are checked and the INSERT, UPDATE or
DELETE is attempted) or
AFTER the operation has been attempted (e.g. after constraints
are checked and the INSERT,
UPDATE or DELETE has
completed). If the
trigger fires before the event, the trigger may
skip the operation for the current tuple, or change the tuple
being inserted (for INSERT and
UPDATE operations only). If
the trigger fires after the event, all changes, including the
last insertion, update, or deletion, are "visible" to the trigger.
Refer to the chapters on SPI and Triggers in the
PostgreSQL Programmer's Guide for more
information.
1998-09-21
Notes
CREATE TRIGGER is a Postgres
language extension.
Only the relation owner may create a trigger on this relation.
As of the current release (v7.0), STATEMENT triggers are not implemented.
Refer to DROP TRIGGER for information on how to
remove triggers.
Usage
Check if the specified distributor code exists in the distributors
table before appending or updating a row in the table films:
CREATE TRIGGER if_dist_exists
BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON films FOR EACH ROW
EXECUTE PROCEDURE check_primary_key ('did', 'distributors', 'did');
Before cancelling a distributor or updating its code, remove every
reference to the table films:
CREATE TRIGGER if_film_exists
BEFORE DELETE OR UPDATE ON distributors FOR EACH ROW
EXECUTE PROCEDURE check_foreign_key (1, 'CASCADE', 'did', 'films', 'did');
Compatibility
1998-09-21
SQL92
There is no CREATE TRIGGER in SQL92.
The second example above may also be done by using a FOREIGN KEY
constraint as in:
CREATE TABLE distributors (
did DECIMAL(3),
name VARCHAR(40),
CONSTRAINT if_film_exists
FOREIGN KEY(did) REFERENCES films
ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE
);