40.6. PL/Perl Triggers

PL/Perl can be used to write trigger functions. In a trigger function, the hash reference $_TD contains information about the current trigger event. $_TD is a global variable, which gets a separate local value for each invocation of the trigger. The fields of the $_TD hash reference are:

Triggers can return one of the following:

Here is an example of a trigger function, illustrating some of the above:

CREATE TABLE test (
    i int,
    v varchar
);

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION valid_id() RETURNS trigger AS $$
    if (($_TD->{new}{i} >= 100) || ($_TD->{new}{i} <= 0)) {
        return "SKIP";    # skip INSERT/UPDATE command
    } elsif ($_TD->{new}{v} ne "immortal") {
        $_TD->{new}{v} .= "(modified by trigger)";
        return "MODIFY";  # modify row and execute INSERT/UPDATE command
    } else {
        return;           # execute INSERT/UPDATE command
    }
$$ LANGUAGE plperl;

CREATE TRIGGER test_valid_id_trig
    BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON test
    FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE valid_id();