Sql-server – Trigger firing despite no rows being affected

dmlsql servertrigger

This is more of a general question but the motivation for this question was a problem I faced while using SQL Server.

I have this trigger attached to an Insert event on a table that contains some logic that, as a side effect, would raise error if no rows were inserted. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the trigger was firing despite no rows being inserted.

The language used in the Microsoft Docs on DML Triggers seems to contradict this behavior:

DML triggers is a special type of stored procedure that automatically takes effect when a DML event takes place that affects the table or view defined in the trigger.

Is this a default behavior across DBMSs? Is there a particular reason to fire a trigger when no rows are affected?

Best Answer

For DML actions, there are row based and statement based triggers.

Row triggers fire when (before, after or instead of) each row is affected (inserted/updated/deleted). So they will fire 100 times if 100 rows are affected and not at all if 0 rows are affected.
Statement triggers fire when an INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE statement is executed. It doesn't matter if no rows are affected. Statement level triggers fire anyway and only once for a statement (whether it's 0, 100 or a billion rows affected).

Some DBMS have only row level triggers (MySQL).

Others (like SQL Server^* which is your DBMS) have only statement level triggers.

Some others (DB2, Oracle, Postgres) have both kinds of triggers.

^* SQL Server CREATE TRIGGER docs state:

DML triggers execute when a user tries to modify data through a data manipulation language (DML) event. DML events are INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statements on a table or view. These triggers fire when any valid event is fired, regardless of whether or not any table rows are affected.

Related Solutions

Postgresql – Triggers not being run on a partitioned table

The trigger is AFTER INSERT OR UPDATE. As you can see in your function, it ends with:

RETURN NULL;

That means that the row is discarded and any changes to the row are void. Actually, the row returned from an AFTER trigger is discarded in any case. The RETURN NULL is just a reminder.

You need to do this in a BEFORE trigger or issue an explicit UPDATE statement. The second option is very tricky, however, because you could end up with an endless loop. Better make it a BEFORE trigger.

As an aside: the conditional expression could be simplified with a CASE statement (since version 8.4):

CASE NEW.timeleft
WHEN 'SHORT' THEN
    NEW.expires := NEW.updated + interval '30 minutes';
WHEN 'MEDIUM' THEN
    NEW.expires := NEW.updated + interval '2 hours';
...
ELSE
    RAISE EXCEPTION 'timeleft was unrecognised. ...';
END CASE;

Sql-server – Launching a python script from an insert trigger

Don't make your user transaction wait for the (hopefully!) successful completion of the Python script. Your entire transaction sits there and waits for this external process to run, try to send mail, etc. I doubt the e-mail really has to go out that instant - especially given you can't control any delays it has as it gets routed to the recipient's inbox anyway. Why not just run the process more frequently, if timing is so important?

Please give this tip a look-through.

If you really, really, really want to do this the wrong way, you can just enable xp_cmdshell and fire away.

EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO

Now, assuming the user has access to xp_cmdshell and/or the SQL Server service account can see the folder where the python script is stored, you should be able to do this from within your trigger:

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell N'C:\Python27\python.exe C:\source\NotifyAgents.py';

As an aside, you should state in your question that you aware that this is a very bad thing^TM, but you are not concerned with that, for whatever reason. I still don't think you're going to get as real time as you expect, even if you do fire this from the trigger. Have you considered database mail instead of python?

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Postgresql – Triggers not being run on a partitioned table

Sql-server – Launching a python script from an insert trigger

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