43.6. Trigger Functions in PL/Tcl
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## 43.6. Trigger Functions in PL/Tcl

Trigger functions can be written in PL/Tcl. PostgreSQL requires that a function that is to be called as a trigger must be declared as a function with no arguments and a return type of `trigger`.

The information from the trigger manager is passed to the function body in the following variables:

`$TG_name`

  The name of the trigger from the `CREATE TRIGGER` statement.

`$TG_relid`

  The object ID of the table that caused the trigger function to be invoked.

`$TG_table_name`

  The name of the table that caused the trigger function to be invoked.

`$TG_table_schema`

  The schema of the table that caused the trigger function to be invoked.

`$TG_relatts`

  A Tcl list of the table column names, prefixed with an empty list element. So looking up a column name in the list with Tcl's `lsearch` command returns the element's number starting with 1 for the first column, the same way the columns are customarily numbered in PostgreSQL. (Empty list elements also appear in the positions of columns that have been dropped, so that the attribute numbering is correct for columns to their right.)

`$TG_when`

  The string `BEFORE`, `AFTER`, or `INSTEAD OF`, depending on the type of trigger event.

`$TG_level`

  The string `ROW` or `STATEMENT` depending on the type of trigger event.

`$TG_op`

  The string `INSERT`, `UPDATE`, `DELETE`, or `TRUNCATE` depending on the type of trigger event.

`$NEW`

  An associative array containing the values of the new table row for `INSERT` or `UPDATE` actions, or empty for `DELETE`. The array is indexed by column name. Columns that are null will not appear in the array. This is not set for statement-level triggers.

`$OLD`

  An associative array containing the values of the old table row for `UPDATE` or `DELETE` actions, or empty for `INSERT`. The array is indexed by column name. Columns that are null will not appear in the array. This is not set for statement-level triggers.

`$args`

  A Tcl list of the arguments to the function as given in the `CREATE TRIGGER` statement. These arguments are also accessible as `$1` ... `$`n`` in the function body.

The return value from a trigger function can be one of the strings `OK` or `SKIP`, or a list of column name/value pairs. If the return value is `OK`, the operation (`INSERT`/`UPDATE`/`DELETE`) that fired the trigger will proceed normally. `SKIP` tells the trigger manager to silently suppress the operation for this row. If a list is returned, it tells PL/Tcl to return a modified row to the trigger manager; the contents of the modified row are specified by the column names and values in the list. Any columns not mentioned in the list are set to null. Returning a modified row is only meaningful for row-level `BEFORE` `INSERT` or `UPDATE` triggers, for which the modified row will be inserted instead of the one given in `$NEW`; or for row-level `INSTEAD OF` `INSERT` or `UPDATE` triggers where the returned row is used as the source data for `INSERT RETURNING` or `UPDATE RETURNING` clauses. In row-level `BEFORE` `DELETE` or `INSTEAD OF` `DELETE` triggers, returning a modified row has the same effect as returning `OK`, that is the operation proceeds. The trigger return value is ignored for all other types of triggers.

### Tip

The result list can be made from an array representation of the modified tuple with the `array get` Tcl command.

Here's a little example trigger function that forces an integer value in a table to keep track of the number of updates that are performed on the row. For new rows inserted, the value is initialized to 0 and then incremented on every update operation.

    CREATE FUNCTION trigfunc_modcount() RETURNS trigger AS $$
        switch $TG_op {
            INSERT {
                set NEW($1) 0
            }
            UPDATE {
                set NEW($1) $OLD($1)
                incr NEW($1)
            }
            default {
                return OK
            }
        }
        return [array get NEW]
    $$ LANGUAGE pltcl;

    CREATE TABLE mytab (num integer, description text, modcnt integer);

    CREATE TRIGGER trig_mytab_modcount BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON mytab
        FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE FUNCTION trigfunc_modcount('modcnt');

Notice that the trigger function itself does not know the column name; that's supplied from the trigger arguments. This lets the trigger function be reused with different tables.

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