Triggers in Teradata SQL.

Written by admin in Tuesday, August 14th 2007 under IT

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First lets start with the question, what are Triggers? Triggers are database ope
rations which are caused by data modification events performed in column(s) of a
table. In simple words, Triggers are event driven operations. The events are no
thing but data modification phenomenon such as insert, update, delete etc. It ca
n consist of a single SQL statement or a block of SQL statements. Triggers are u
sed to reduce manual intervention for tasks which are reparative in nature. Like
auto update, data integrity etc.
Triggers are of two types;
Row level triggers Row level triggers executes once for each row of the table th
at is being modified by the triggering event.
Statement level triggers Statement triggers on the other hand, executes only onc
e upon the execution of the entire triggering statement.
Again the above triggers can be executed BEFORE any event occurs or AFTER.
In the BEFORE triggers, the triggering action (action needs to be done like insert
ing a row) is only initiated but is not completed. Control then flows to the tri
ggered action (check on the row in the same table). After the triggered action i
s complete, control returns to the triggering event, which then (if all went wel
l) completes its job (inserts the row into the table).
In case of AFTER triggers, first, control flows to the trigger event (update a row
) upon completion only the control passes to the triggered action (insert a new
row regarding the update).
To add to the list there are also a couple of more types of triggers; INSTEAD OF a
nd CASCADING. Former one is used perform something when the original trigger could
not be completed. For example, on a particular UPDATE, you want to INSERT into
a table but could not due to some error, then log this message to another table
using INSTEAD OF trigger. On the other hand CASCADING triggers are triggers fired
by another trigger. TriggerB is fired by TriggerA on some update performed. Synt
ax for creating a trigger;
CREATE[REPLACE] TRIGGER <trigger_name>
[ENABLED|DISABLED] BEFORE|AFTER
INSERT|DELETE|UPDATE OF <column name> ON <table name>
REFERENCING OLD[row|table] AS <before processed row>
NEW[row|table] AS <after processed row>
FOR EACH ROW | STATEMENT WHEN (search_condition SQL statement)
(<triggered action to be performed >;);
Note the two semi-colons, first one is for the triggered action statement and th
e 2nd one is for the entire CREATE TRIGGER statement.