Re: Auto-updated fields

On Thursday 08 May 2008 00:27:10 Tino Wildenhain wrote:
> David Fetter wrote:
> > 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?
>
> Having the pre defined triggers at hand could be useful, especially
> for people not writing triggers so often to get used to it but I'm
> really not happy with the idea of magic preprocessing.
>
> I guess this is commonly used with timestamp fields so why not
> include a receipe to the docs under examples for timestamp which
> shows how to create and use a trigger?
>

I have a generic version of this in pagila.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL