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From: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
Reply-To: josh@agliodbs.com
Organization: Aglio Database Solutions
To: Michiel Lange <michiel@minas.demon.nl>, pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: trying to learn plpqsql... so please forgive..
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:27:41 -0800
Cc: Michiel Lange <michiel@minas.demon.nl>, pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
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Michiel,

> And this function:
> CREATE FUNCTION add_cust() RETURNS INT4 AS ' -- SERIAL data type is reall=
y=20
> an INT4 (and some more).
> BEGIN
>          RETURN NEW.my_key;
> END;
> ' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
>=20
>   CREATE TRIGGER add_cust BEFORE INSERT ON mytable
>   FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE add_cust();
>=20
> Ok, now I know it won't work... the idea was to use this with PHP in a=20
> webclient interface where the customer could give some information about=
=20
> him/herself and then would be registered with the customer number generat=
ed=20
> by the SERIAL type.
> Would it work if I did a CREATE TRIGGER add_cust AFTER INSERT... ? (menti=
on=20
> the AFTER instead of BEFORE)

No, you can't return a value to the client from a Trigger.   Not ever.=20=
=20=20
Triggers modify data, and they can log stuff, but they can't return values =
to=20
the calling interface.

Now, what you could do is replace the whole insert with a function, doing:

SELECT add_cust( name, address, phone, credit_card);

Which does the inserting and returns the new id to the client.    This is a=
=20
solution I frequently use in my web apps.

-Josh Berkus