Auto-updated fields

Folks,

A co-worker pointed out to me that MySQL has a feature that, properly
implemented and maybe extended, could be handy, namely what MySQL
calls a "timestamp" field, so here's a proposal:

1. Create a generic (possibly overloaded) trigger function, bundled
with PostgreSQL, which sets a field to some value. For example, a
timestamptz version might set the field to now().

2. Have some kind of pre-processing of CREATE and ALTER statements on
tables which would attach the above function to the field at hand,
something like:

CREATE TABLE foo(
last_updated TIMESTAMPTZ_UPDATED(),
...
);

which would turn last_updated into a TIMESTAMPTZ with the expected
behavior on UPDATEs.

What do folks think of this idea?

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

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