CREATE TRIGGER
Syntax
This statement creates a new trigger. A trigger is a named database object that is associated with a table, and that activates when a particular event occurs for the table. The trigger becomes associated with the table named tbl_name
, which must refer to a permanent table. You cannot associate a trigger with a TEMPORARY
table or a view.
CREATE TRIGGER
requires the TRIGGER
privilege for the table associated with the trigger. The statement might also require the SUPER
privilege, depending on the DEFINER
value, as described later in this section. If binary logging is enabled, CREATE TRIGGER
might require the SUPER
privilege, as described in , "Binary Logging of Stored Programs".
The DEFINER
clause determines the security context to be used when checking access privileges at trigger activation time. See later in this section for more information.
trigger_time
is the trigger action time. It can be BEFORE
or AFTER
to indicate that the trigger activates before or after each row to be modified.
trigger_event
indicates the kind of statement that activates the trigger. The trigger_event
can be one of the following:
INSERT
: The trigger is activated whenever a new row is inserted into the table; for example, throughINSERT
,LOAD DATA
, andREPLACE
statements.UPDATE
: The trigger is activated whenever a row is modified; for example, throughUPDATE
statements.DELETE
: The trigger is activated whenever a row is deleted from the table; for example, throughDELETE
andREPLACE
statements. However,DROP TABLE
andTRUNCATE TABLE
statements on the table do not activate this trigger, because they do not useDELETE
. Dropping a partition does not activateDELETE
triggers, either. See , "TRUNCATE TABLE
Syntax".
It is important to understand that the trigger_event
does not represent a literal type of SQL statement that activates the trigger so much as it represents a type of table operation. For example, an INSERT
trigger is activated by not only INSERT
statements but also LOAD DATA
statements because both statements insert rows into a table.
A potentially confusing example of this is the INSERT INTO ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ...
syntax: a BEFORE INSERT
trigger will activate for every row, followed by either an AFTER INSERT
trigger or both the BEFORE UPDATE
and AFTER UPDATE
triggers, depending on whether there was a duplicate key for the row.
There cannot be two triggers for a given table that have the same trigger action time and event. For example, you cannot have two BEFORE UPDATE
triggers for a table. But you can have a BEFORE UPDATE
and a BEFORE INSERT
trigger, or a BEFORE UPDATE
and an AFTER UPDATE
trigger.
trigger_body
is the statement to execute when the trigger activates. If you want to execute multiple statements, use the BEGIN ... END
compound statement construct. This also enables you to use the same statements that are permissible within stored routines. See , "BEGIN ... END
Compound-Statement Syntax". Some statements are not permitted in triggers; see "Restrictions on Stored Programs".
You can refer to columns in the subject table (the table associated with the trigger) by using the aliases OLD
and NEW
. OLD.
refers to a column of an existing row before it is updated or deleted. col_name
NEW.
refers to the column of a new row to be inserted or an existing row after it is updated.
col_name
MySQL stores the sql_mode
system variable setting that is in effect at the time a trigger is created, and always executes the trigger with this setting in force, regardless of the server SQL mode in effect when the event begins executing.Note
Currently, cascaded foreign key actions do not activate triggers.
The DEFINER
clause specifies the MariaDB account to be used when checking access privileges at trigger activation time. If a user
value is given, it should be a MariaDB account specified as '
(the same format used in the user_name
'@'host_name
'GRANT
statement), CURRENT-USER
, or CURRENT_USER()
. The default DEFINER
value is the user who executes the CREATE TRIGGER
statement. This is the same as specifying DEFINER = CURRENT_USER
explicitly.
If you specify the DEFINER
clause, these rules determine the legal DEFINER
user values:
- If you do not have the
SUPER
privilege, the only legaluser
value is your own account, either specified literally or by usingCURRENT_USER
. You cannot set the definer to some other account. - If you have the
SUPER
privilege, you can specify any syntactically legal account name. If the account does not actually exist, a warning is generated. - Although it is possible to create a trigger with a nonexistent
DEFINER
account, it is not a good idea for such triggers to be activated until the account actually does exist. Otherwise, the behavior with respect to privilege checking is undefined.
MySQL takes the DEFINER
user into account when checking trigger privileges as follows:
- At
CREATE TRIGGER
time, the user who issues the statement must have theTRIGGER
privilege. - At trigger activation time, privileges are checked against the
DEFINER
user. This user must have these privileges:- The
TRIGGER
privilege. - The
SELECT
privilege for the subject table if references to table columns occur usingOLD.
orcol_name
NEW.
in the trigger definition.col_name
- The
UPDATE
privilege for the subject table if table columns are targets ofSET NEW.
assignments in the trigger definition.col_name
=value
- Whatever other privileges normally are required for the statements executed by the trigger.
- The
For more information about trigger security, see , "Access Control for Stored Programs and Views".
Within a trigger, the CURRENT_USER()
function returns the account used to check privileges at trigger activation time. This is the DEFINER
user, not the user whose actions caused the trigger to be activated. For information about user auditing within triggers, see , "Auditing MariaDB Account Activity".
If you use LOCK TABLES
to lock a table that has triggers, the tables used within the trigger are also locked, as described in , "LOCK TABLES
and Triggers".
In MariaDB 5.6, you can write triggers containing direct references to tables by name, such as the trigger named testref
shown in this example:
CREATE TABLE test1(a1 INT); CREATE TABLE test2(a2 INT); CREATE TABLE test3(a3 INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY); CREATE TABLE test4( a4 INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, b4 INT DEFAULT 0 ); delimiter | CREATE TRIGGER testref BEFORE INSERT ON test1 FOR EACH ROW BEGIN INSERT INTO test2 SET a2 = NEW.a1; DELETE FROM test3 WHERE a3 = NEW.a1; UPDATE test4 SET b4 = b4 + 1 WHERE a4 = NEW.a1; END; | delimiter ; INSERT INTO test3 (a3) VALUES (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL), (NULL); INSERT INTO test4 (a4) VALUES (0), (0), (0), (0), (0), (0), (0), (0), (0), (0);
Suppose that you insert the following values into table test1
as shown here:
mysql>INSERT INTO test1 VALUES
->(1), (3), (1), (7), (1), (8), (4), (4);
Query OK, 8 rows affected (0.01 sec) Records: 8 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0
As a result, the data in the four tables will be as follows: