SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER display_salary_changes

2 BEFORE DELETE OR INSERT OR UPDATE ON customers

3 FOR EACH ROW

4 WHEN (NEW.ID > 0)

5 DECLARE

6 sal_diff number;

7 BEGIN

8 sal_diff := :NEW.salary - :OLD.salary;

9 dbms_output.put_line('Old salary: ' || :OLD.salary);

10 dbms_output.put_line('New salary: ' || :NEW.salary);

11 dbms_output.put_line('Salary difference: ' || sal_diff);

12 END;

13 /

Trigger created.

SQL> CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS(ID NUMBER(20),NAME VARCHAR(20),AGE

NUMBER(20),ADDRESS VARCHAR(20),SALARY NUMBER(20));

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS VALUES(7, 'Kriti', 22, 'HP', 7500.00 );

1 row created.

SQL> INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS VALUES(8, 'VARUN', 33, 'LP', 8500.00 );

1 row created.

SQL> INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS VALUES(9, 'KAVYA', 44, 'DP', 9500.00 );

1 row created.

SQL> INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS VALUES(2, 'DIVYA', 11, 'SP', 5500.00 );

1 row created.

SQL> SELECT *FROM CUSTOMERS;

ID NAME AGE ADDRESS SALARY

---------- -------------------- ---------- -------------------- ----------

7 Kriti 22 HP 7500

8 VARUN 33 LP 8500

9 KAVYA 44 DP 9500

2 DIVYA 11 SP 5500
SQL> UPDATE customers

2 SET salary = salary + 500

3 WHERE id = 2;

1 row updated.

SQL> SELECT *FROM CUSTOMERS;

ID NAME AGE ADDRESS SALARY

---------- -------------------- ---------- -------------------- ----------

7 Kriti 22 HP 7500

8 VARUN 33 LP 8500

9 KAVYA 44 DP 9500

2 DIVYA 11 SP 6000
In this chapter, we will discuss Triggers in PL/SQL. Triggers are stored programs, which are
automatically executed or fired when some events occur. Triggers are, in fact, written to be
executed in response to any of the following events −

 A database manipulation (DML) statement (DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE)

 A database definition (DDL) statement (CREATE, ALTER, or DROP).
 A database operation (SERVERERROR, LOGON, LOGOFF, STARTUP, or
SHUTDOWN).

Triggers can be defined on the table, view, schema, or database with which the event is
associated.

Benefits of Triggers

Triggers can be written for the following purposes −

 Generating some derived column values automatically

 Enforcing referential integrity
 Event logging and storing information on table access
 Auditing
 Synchronous replication of tables
 Imposing security authorizations
 Preventing invalid transactions

Creating Triggers

The syntax for creating a trigger is −

CREATE [OR REPLACE ] TRIGGER trigger_name

{BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF }
{INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE}
[OF col_name]
ON table_name
[REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n]
[FOR EACH ROW]
WHEN (condition)
DECLARE
Declaration-statements
BEGIN
Executable-statements
EXCEPTION
Exception-handling-statements
END;

Where,

 CREATE [OR REPLACE] TRIGGER trigger_name − Creates or replaces an existing

trigger with the trigger_name.
 {BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF} − This specifies when the trigger will be
executed. The INSTEAD OF clause is used for creating trigger on a view.
 {INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE} − This specifies the DML operation.
 [OF col_name] − This specifies the column name that will be updated.
 [ON table_name] − This specifies the name of the table associated with the trigger.
 [REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n] − This allows you to refer new and old
values for various DML statements, such as INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.
 [FOR EACH ROW] − This specifies a row-level trigger, i.e., the trigger will be
executed for each row being affected. Otherwise the trigger will execute just once
when the SQL statement is executed, which is called a table level trigger.
 WHEN (condition) − This provides a condition for rows for which the trigger would
fire. This clause is valid only for row-level triggers.

Example

To start with, we will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the
previous chapters −
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
The following program creates a row-level trigger for the customers table that would fire for
INSERT or UPDATE or DELETE operations performed on the CUSTOMERS table. This
trigger will display the salary difference between the old values and new values −

The following points need to be considered here −

 OLD and NEW references are not available for table-level triggers, rather you can use
them for record-level triggers.
 If you want to query the table in the same trigger, then you should use the AFTER
keyword, because triggers can query the table or change it again only after the initial
changes are applied and the table is back in a consistent state.
 The above trigger has been written in such a way that it will fire before any DELETE
or INSERT or UPDATE operation on the table, but you can write your trigger on a
single or multiple operations, for example BEFORE DELETE, which will fire
whenever a record will be deleted using the DELETE operation on the table.

Triggering a Trigger

Let us perform some DML operations on the CUSTOMERS table. Here is one INSERT
statement, which will create a new record in the table −
INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (7, 'Kriti', 22, 'HP', 7500.00 );
When a record is created in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create
trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −
Old salary:
New salary: 7500
Salary difference:

Because this is a new record, old salary is not available and the above result comes as null.
Let us now perform one more DML operation on the CUSTOMERS table. The UPDATE
statement will update an existing record in the table −

UPDATE customers
SET salary = salary + 500
WHERE id = 2;
When a record is updated in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create
trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −
Old salary: 1500
New salary: 2000
Salary difference: 500