Re: Best way to restrict detail rows?

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Christopher Maier <maier(at)med(dot)unc(dot)edu> wrote:
> I have a "master-detail" kind of situation, as illustrated here:
>
> CREATE TABLE master(
> id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
> foo TEXT
> );
>
> CREATE TABLE detail(
> id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY
> master BIGINT NOT NULL REFERENCES master(id),
> bar TEXT
> );
>
> (this is a simplification, of course)
>
> I would like a way to restrict the addition of new detail records, but only
> after the initial detail records have been inserted into the system.

After you create the table do something like this:

create rule detail_no_insert as on insert to detail do nothing;
create rule detail_no_update as on update to detail do nothing;

poof. no more updates or inserts work. Note that copy will still
work, as it doesn't fire rules. So, you can update the data with
copy, and otherwise not touch it.