Re: Patch to fix documentation about AFTER triggers

On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 7:00 AM, Ashutosh Bapat
<ashutosh(dot)bapat(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 2:45 AM, Paul Jungwirth
> <pj(at)illuminatedcomputing(dot)com> wrote:
>> Here is a patch to amend the docs here:
>>
>> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/static/plpgsql-trigger.html
>>
>> In the example for an AFTER trigger, you see this code:
>>
>> --
>> -- Create a row in emp_audit to reflect the operation performed on emp,
>> -- make use of the special variable TG_OP to work out the operation.
>> --
>> IF (TG_OP = 'DELETE') THEN
>> INSERT INTO emp_audit SELECT 'D', now(), user, OLD.*;
>> RETURN OLD;
>> ELSIF (TG_OP = 'UPDATE') THEN
>> INSERT INTO emp_audit SELECT 'U', now(), user, NEW.*;
>> RETURN NEW;
>> ELSIF (TG_OP = 'INSERT') THEN
>> INSERT INTO emp_audit SELECT 'I', now(), user, NEW.*;
>> RETURN NEW;
>> END IF;
>> RETURN NULL; -- result is ignored since this is an AFTER trigger
>>
>> What are all those RETURNs doing in there? The comment on the final RETURN
>> is correct, so returning NEW or OLD above seems confusing, and likely a
>> copy/paste error.
>>
>> This patch just removes those three lines from the example code.
>
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/static/trigger-definition.html says
> "The return value is ignored for row-level triggers fired after an
> operation, and so they can return NULL.". There's nothing wrong with
> the example, returning OLD or NEW, but as you have pointed out it's
> confusing. So, +1 for this change.

Committed.

--
Robert Haas
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