create_rule man page on Scientific

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   26626 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Scientific logo
[printable version]

CREATE RULE(7)			 SQL Commands			CREATE RULE(7)

NAME
       CREATE RULE - define a new rewrite rule

SYNOPSIS
       CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] RULE name AS ON event
	   TO table [ WHERE condition ]
	   DO [ ALSO | INSTEAD ] { NOTHING | command | ( command ; command ... ) }

DESCRIPTION
       CREATE  RULE  defines a new rule applying to a specified table or view.
       CREATE OR REPLACE RULE will either create a new	rule,  or  replace  an
       existing rule of the same name for the same table.

       The  PostgreSQL	rule system allows one to define an alternative action
       to be performed	on  insertions,	 updates,  or  deletions  in  database
       tables.	Roughly speaking, a rule causes additional commands to be exe‐
       cuted when a given command on a given table is executed. Alternatively,
       an INSTEAD rule can replace a given command by another, or cause a com‐
       mand not to be executed at all. Rules are used to implement table views
       as  well.  It  is  important to realize that a rule is really a command
       transformation mechanism, or command macro. The transformation  happens
       before  the  execution of the commands starts.  If you actually want an
       operation that fires independently for each physical row, you  probably
       want  to	 use  a trigger, not a rule.  More information about the rules
       system is in in the documentation.

       Presently, ON SELECT rules must be unconditional INSTEAD rules and must
       have  actions  that  consist  of	 a  single SELECT command. Thus, an ON
       SELECT rule effectively turns the table into a view, whose visible con‐
       tents  are  the	rows returned by the rule's SELECT command rather than
       whatever had been stored in the table (if anything). It	is  considered
       better style to write a CREATE VIEW command than to create a real table
       and define an ON SELECT rule for it.

       You can create the illusion of an updatable view by defining ON INSERT,
       ON  UPDATE,  and	 ON DELETE rules (or any subset of those that's suffi‐
       cient for your purposes) to replace update actions  on  the  view  with
       appropriate  updates  on	 other	tables.	 If you want to support INSERT
       RETURNING and so on, then be sure to put a  suitable  RETURNING	clause
       into each of these rules.

       There  is a catch if you try to use conditional rules for view updates:
       there must be an unconditional INSTEAD rule for each action you wish to
       allow  on the view. If the rule is conditional, or is not INSTEAD, then
       the system will still reject attempts to	 perform  the  update  action,
       because	it  thinks it might end up trying to perform the action on the
       dummy table of the view in some cases. If you want to  handle  all  the
       useful  cases  in  conditional  rules,  add an unconditional DO INSTEAD
       NOTHING rule to ensure that the system understands  it  will  never  be
       called  on  to update the dummy table.  Then make the conditional rules
       non-INSTEAD; in the cases where they  are  applied,  they  add  to  the
       default INSTEAD NOTHING action. (This method does not currently work to
       support RETURNING queries, however.)

PARAMETERS
       name   The name of a rule to create. This must  be  distinct  from  the
	      name of any other rule for the same table. Multiple rules on the
	      same table and same event type are applied in alphabetical  name
	      order.

       event  The event is one of SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE.

       table  The  name (optionally schema-qualified) of the table or view the
	      rule applies to.

       condition
	      Any SQL conditional expression (returning boolean).  The	condi‐
	      tion  expression	cannot refer to any tables except NEW and OLD,
	      and cannot contain aggregate functions.

       INSTEAD
	      INSTEAD indicates that the commands should be  executed  instead
	      of the original command.

       ALSO   ALSO  indicates that the commands should be executed in addition
	      to the original command.

	      If neither ALSO nor INSTEAD is specified, ALSO is the default.

       command
	      The command or commands that make up the rule action. Valid com‐
	      mands are SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or NOTIFY.

       Within  condition  and command, the special table names NEW and OLD can
       be used to refer to values in the referenced table.  NEW is valid in ON
       INSERT  and  ON	UPDATE rules to refer to the new row being inserted or
       updated. OLD is valid in ON UPDATE and ON DELETE rules to refer to  the
       existing row being updated or deleted.

NOTES
       You must be the owner of a table to create or change rules for it.

       In  a  rule  for	 INSERT,  UPDATE,  or  DELETE on a view, you can add a
       RETURNING clause that emits the view's columns.	This  clause  will  be
       used  to	 compute  the  outputs	if  the rule is triggered by an INSERT
       RETURNING, UPDATE RETURNING, or DELETE RETURNING command	 respectively.
       When  the  rule is triggered by a command without RETURNING, the rule's
       RETURNING clause will be ignored.  The  current	implementation	allows
       only  unconditional  INSTEAD  rules  to	contain RETURNING; furthermore
       there can be at most one RETURNING clause among all the rules  for  the
       same  event.  (This  ensures that there is only one candidate RETURNING
       clause to be used to compute the results.)  RETURNING  queries  on  the
       view  will be rejected if there is no RETURNING clause in any available
       rule.

       It is very important to take care to avoid circular rules. For example,
       though each of the following two rule definitions are accepted by Post‐
       greSQL, the SELECT command would cause PostgreSQL to  report  an	 error
       because of recursive expansion of a rule:

       CREATE RULE "_RETURN" AS
	   ON SELECT TO t1
	   DO INSTEAD
	       SELECT * FROM t2;

       CREATE RULE "_RETURN" AS
	   ON SELECT TO t2
	   DO INSTEAD
	       SELECT * FROM t1;

       SELECT * FROM t1;

       Presently,  if a rule action contains a NOTIFY command, the NOTIFY com‐
       mand will be executed unconditionally, that  is,	 the  NOTIFY  will  be
       issued  even  if	 there are not any rows that the rule should apply to.
       For example, in:

       CREATE RULE notify_me AS ON UPDATE TO mytable DO ALSO NOTIFY mytable;

       UPDATE mytable SET name = 'foo' WHERE id = 42;

       one NOTIFY event will be sent during the UPDATE, whether or  not	 there
       are  any	 rows that match the condition id = 42. This is an implementa‐
       tion restriction that might be fixed in future releases.

COMPATIBILITY
       CREATE RULE is a PostgreSQL language extension, as is the entire	 query
       rewrite system.

SQL - Language Statements	  2013-10-08			CREATE RULE(7)
[top]

List of man pages available for Scientific

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net