Question :
My table and trigger in PostgreSQL 9.4.3 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 4.9.2-10) 4.9.2, 64-bit:
CREATE TABLE measurements (
measurement_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
measurement_size_in_bytes INTEGER NOT NULL
);
CREATE TABLE file_headers (
header_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
measurement_id INTEGER NOT NULL,
file_header_index_start INTEGER,
file_header_index_end INTEGER
);
CREATE TRIGGER measurement_ids AFTER INSERT
ON measurements FOR EACH ROW
EXECUTE PROCEDURE ins_function('SELECT measurement_id FROM measurements
ORDER BY measurement_id desc limit 1;', 1, 666 );
where I assumed that the datatype of the SELECT is INTEGER since SERIAL but it is apparently false because I get the error message from this command which starts the trigger:
INSERT INTO measurements (measurement_size_in_bytes) VALUES (888);`
ERROR: invalid input syntax for integer: "SELECT measurement_id FROM measurements ORDER BY measurement_id desc limit 1;"
CONTEXT: PL/pgSQL function ins_function() line 10 at assignment
Edit
ins_function()
and edits based on @a_horse_with_no_name and @Joishi’s comments:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION ins_function() RETURNS TRIGGER AS $$
--
-- Perform AFTER INSERT operation on file_header by creating rows with new.measurement_id, new.file_header_index_start and new.file_header_index_end.
--
DECLARE
measurement_id INTEGER;
file_header_index_start INTEGER;
file_header_index_end INTEGER;
BEGIN
SELECT a.measurement_id INTO measurement_id from measurements a ORDER BY measurement_id desc limit 1;
file_header_index_start := TG_ARGV[0];
file_header_index_end := TG_ARGV[1];
IF TG_OP = 'INSERT' THEN
INSERT INTO file_headers (measurement_id, file_header_index_start, file_header_index_end)
VALUES (measurement_id, file_header_index_start, file_header_index_end);
RETURN NEW;
END IF;
RETURN NULL; -- result is ignored since this is an AFTER trigger
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
--
-- Function and trigger on INSERT.
--
CREATE TRIGGER measurement_ids AFTER INSERT
ON measurements FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE ins_function(1, 666);
I get now no error but the output is wrong: no INSERT
seen in the table file_headers
while successfully in the table measurements.
Output of @ErwinBrandstetter’s answer
So I started to think about casting from TEXT to INT but this should be so basic operation, since TG_ARGV[]
is a datatype of text. One unsuccessful try is format('SELECT $1.%I', TG_ARGV[0])
.
The regclass
could work as you describe here in insaft_function()
SELECT NEW.measurement_id, TG_ARGV[0]::regclass, TG_ARGV[1]::regclass;
Why are there no successful INSERTs into the table file_headers
?
Answer :
You have an unresolved naming conflict.
You must be using an old version of Postgres without declaring it. Or you are operating with non-default configuration setting.
Here you declare a variable named measurement_id
:
DECLARE
measurement_id INTEGER;
It’s a folly to use ambiguous variable names to begin with. If you do it anyway, you must know what you are doing. I make it a habbit to prepend variable names with an underscore unlike column names, like _measurement_id
.
The later SELECT
statement is ambiguous:
ORDER BY measurement_id
This would raise an error message in modern PostgreSQL with default configuration. Per the documentation:
By default, PL/pgSQL will report an error if a name in a SQL statement
could refer to either a variable or a table column.
And:
To change this behavior on a system-wide basis, set the configuration
parameterplpgsql.variable_conflict
to one of error, use_variable, or
use_column (where error is the factory default). This parameter
affects subsequent compilations of statements in PL/pgSQL functions,
but not statements already compiled in the current session. Because
changing this setting can cause unexpected changes in the behavior of
PL/pgSQL functions, it can only be changed by a superuser.
In Postgres older than 9.0 this would be resolved to mean the variable. Per the documentation
In such cases you can specify that PL/pgSQL should resolve ambiguous
references as the variable (which is compatible with PL/pgSQL’s
behavior before PostgreSQL 9.0)
Bold emphasis mine.
This would result in arbitrary results, since the sort order is now undetermined.
Audited Function
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION insaft_function()
RETURNS TRIGGER AS
$func$
DECLARE
_measurement_id integer;
_file_header_index_start integer := TG_ARGV[0]::int;
_file_header_index_end integer := TG_ARGV[1]::int;
BEGIN
SELECT a.measurement_id INTO _measurement_id
FROM measurements a
ORDER BY a.measurement_id DESC -- you had ambiguity here!
LIMIT 1;
IF TG_OP = 'INSERT' THEN -- noise if only used in AFTER INSERT trigger
INSERT INTO file_headers (measurement_id, file_header_index_start
, file_header_index_end)
VALUES (_measurement_id, _file_header_index_start, _file_header_index_end);
END IF;
RETURN NULL; -- result is ignored since this is an AFTER trigger
END
$func$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
Note how I named it insaft_function()
, since this is only to be used in an AFTER INSERT
trigger.
Trigger:
CREATE TRIGGER insaft_measurement_ids
AFTER INSERT ON measurements
FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE insaft_function(1, 666);
But for the provided setup, you can radically simplify the function:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION insaft_function()
RETURNS TRIGGER AS
$func$
BEGIN
INSERT INTO file_headers (measurement_id, file_header_index_start
, file_header_index_end)
VALUES (NEW.measurement_id, TG_ARGV[0]::int, TG_ARGV[1]::int);
RETURN NULL; -- result ignored since this is an AFTER trigger
END
$func$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;