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PostgreSQL Server Programming

You're reading from   PostgreSQL Server Programming Take your skills with PostgreSQL to a whole new level with this fascinating guide to server programming. A step by step approach with illuminating examples will educate you in the full range of possibilities.

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jun 2013
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781849516983
Length 264 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Toc

Table of Contents (17) Chapters Close

PostgreSQL Server Programming
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
1. What Is a PostgreSQL Server? 2. Server Programming Environment FREE CHAPTER 3. Your First PL/pgSQL Function 4. Returning Structured Data 5. PL/pgSQL Trigger Functions 6. Debugging PL/pgSQL 7. Using Unrestricted Languages 8. Writing Advanced Functions in C 9. Scaling Your Database with PL/Proxy 10. Publishing Your Code as PostgreSQL Extensions Index

Immutable fields trigger


When you are depending on the fields in the rows as part of your audit record, you need to ensure that the values reflect reality. We were able to make sure that the last_changed_ * fields always contain the correct value, but how about the created_by and created_at values? These can easily be changed in later updates, but they should never change. Even initially, they can be set to false values, since default values can be easily overridden by giving any other value in the INSERT statement.

So, let's modify our changestamp() trigger function into a usagestamp() function, which makes sure that initial values are what they should be and that they stay like that:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION usagestamp()
  RETURNS TRIGGER AS $$
BEGIN
    IF TG_OP = 'INSERT' THEN
        NEW.created_by = SESSION_USER;
        NEW.created_at = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;
    ELSE
        NEW.created_by = OLD.created_by;
        NEW.created_at = OLD.created_at;    
    END IF;

    NEW.last_changed_by...
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