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- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>CREATE RULE</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="prev" href="sql-createrole.html" title="CREATE ROLE" /><link rel="next" href="sql-createschema.html" title="CREATE SCHEMA" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">CREATE RULE</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="sql-createrole.html" title="CREATE ROLE">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="sql-commands.html" title="SQL Commands">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">SQL Commands</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 12.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="sql-createschema.html" title="CREATE SCHEMA">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="refentry" id="SQL-CREATERULE"><div class="titlepage"></div><a id="id-1.9.3.79.1" class="indexterm"></a><div class="refnamediv"><h2><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE RULE</span></h2><p>CREATE RULE — define a new rewrite rule</p></div><div class="refsynopsisdiv"><h2>Synopsis</h2><pre class="synopsis">
- CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] RULE <em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em> AS ON <em class="replaceable"><code>event</code></em>
- TO <em class="replaceable"><code>table_name</code></em> [ WHERE <em class="replaceable"><code>condition</code></em> ]
- DO [ ALSO | INSTEAD ] { NOTHING | <em class="replaceable"><code>command</code></em> | ( <em class="replaceable"><code>command</code></em> ; <em class="replaceable"><code>command</code></em> ... ) }
-
- <span class="phrase">where <em class="replaceable"><code>event</code></em> can be one of:</span>
-
- SELECT | INSERT | UPDATE | DELETE
- </pre></div><div class="refsect1" id="id-1.9.3.79.5"><h2>Description</h2><p>
- <code class="command">CREATE RULE</code> defines a new rule applying to a specified
- table or view.
- <code class="command">CREATE OR REPLACE RULE</code> will either create a
- new rule, or replace an existing rule of the same name for the same
- table.
- </p><p>
- The <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> 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 executed when a given command on a given
- table is executed. Alternatively, an <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code>
- rule can replace a given command by another, or cause a command
- not to be executed at all. Rules are used to implement SQL
- 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 command 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 <a class="xref" href="rules.html" title="Chapter 40. The Rule System">Chapter 40</a>.
- </p><p>
- Presently, <code class="literal">ON SELECT</code> rules must be unconditional
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code> rules and must have actions that consist
- of a single <code class="command">SELECT</code> command. Thus, an
- <code class="literal">ON SELECT</code> rule effectively turns the table into
- a view, whose visible contents are the rows returned by the rule's
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> command rather than whatever had been
- stored in the table (if anything). It is considered better style
- to write a <code class="command">CREATE VIEW</code> command than to create a
- real table and define an <code class="literal">ON SELECT</code> rule for it.
- </p><p>
- You can create the illusion of an updatable view by defining
- <code class="literal">ON INSERT</code>, <code class="literal">ON UPDATE</code>, and
- <code class="literal">ON DELETE</code> rules (or any subset of those that's
- sufficient for your purposes) to replace update actions on the view
- with appropriate updates on other tables. If you want to support
- <code class="command">INSERT RETURNING</code> and so on, then be sure to put a suitable
- <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> clause into each of these rules.
- </p><p>
- There is a catch if you try to use conditional rules for complex view
- updates: there <span class="emphasis"><em>must</em></span> be an unconditional
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code> rule for each action you wish to allow
- on the view. If the rule is conditional, or is not
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code>, 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 <code class="literal">DO
- INSTEAD NOTHING</code> rule to ensure that the system
- understands it will never be called on to update the dummy table.
- Then make the conditional rules non-<code class="literal">INSTEAD</code>; in
- the cases where they are applied, they add to the default
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD NOTHING</code> action. (This method does not
- currently work to support <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> queries, however.)
- </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
- A view that is simple enough to be automatically updatable (see <a class="xref" href="sql-createview.html" title="CREATE VIEW"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE VIEW</span></a>) does not require a user-created rule in
- order to be updatable. While you can create an explicit rule anyway,
- the automatic update transformation will generally outperform an
- explicit rule.
- </p><p>
- Another alternative worth considering is to use <code class="literal">INSTEAD OF</code>
- triggers (see <a class="xref" href="sql-createtrigger.html" title="CREATE TRIGGER"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE TRIGGER</span></a>) in place of rules.
- </p></div></div><div class="refsect1" id="id-1.9.3.79.6"><h2>Parameters</h2><div class="variablelist"><dl class="variablelist"><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em></span></dt><dd><p>
- 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.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>event</code></em></span></dt><dd><p>
- The event is one of <code class="literal">SELECT</code>,
- <code class="literal">INSERT</code>, <code class="literal">UPDATE</code>, or
- <code class="literal">DELETE</code>. Note that an
- <code class="command">INSERT</code> containing an <code class="literal">ON
- CONFLICT</code> clause cannot be used on tables that have
- either <code class="literal">INSERT</code> or <code class="literal">UPDATE</code>
- rules. Consider using an updatable view instead.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>table_name</code></em></span></dt><dd><p>
- The name (optionally schema-qualified) of the table or view the
- rule applies to.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>condition</code></em></span></dt><dd><p>
- Any <acronym class="acronym">SQL</acronym> conditional expression (returning
- <code class="type">boolean</code>). The condition expression cannot refer
- to any tables except <code class="literal">NEW</code> and <code class="literal">OLD</code>, and
- cannot contain aggregate functions.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="option">INSTEAD</code></span></dt><dd><p><code class="literal">INSTEAD</code> indicates that the commands should be
- executed <span class="emphasis"><em>instead of</em></span> the original command.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="option">ALSO</code></span></dt><dd><p><code class="literal">ALSO</code> indicates that the commands should be
- executed <span class="emphasis"><em>in addition to</em></span> the original
- command.
- </p><p>
- If neither <code class="literal">ALSO</code> nor
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code> is specified, <code class="literal">ALSO</code>
- is the default.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>command</code></em></span></dt><dd><p>
- The command or commands that make up the rule action. Valid
- commands are <code class="command">SELECT</code>,
- <code class="command">INSERT</code>, <code class="command">UPDATE</code>,
- <code class="command">DELETE</code>, or <code class="command">NOTIFY</code>.
- </p></dd></dl></div><p>
- Within <em class="replaceable"><code>condition</code></em> and
- <em class="replaceable"><code>command</code></em>, the special
- table names <code class="literal">NEW</code> and <code class="literal">OLD</code> can
- be used to refer to values in the referenced table.
- <code class="literal">NEW</code> is valid in <code class="literal">ON INSERT</code> and
- <code class="literal">ON UPDATE</code> rules to refer to the new row being
- inserted or updated. <code class="literal">OLD</code> is valid in
- <code class="literal">ON UPDATE</code> and <code class="literal">ON DELETE</code> rules
- to refer to the existing row being updated or deleted.
- </p></div><div class="refsect1" id="id-1.9.3.79.7"><h2>Notes</h2><p>
- You must be the owner of a table to create or change rules for it.
- </p><p>
- In a rule for <code class="literal">INSERT</code>, <code class="literal">UPDATE</code>, or
- <code class="literal">DELETE</code> on a view, you can add a <code class="literal">RETURNING</code>
- clause that emits the view's columns. This clause will be used to compute
- the outputs if the rule is triggered by an <code class="command">INSERT RETURNING</code>,
- <code class="command">UPDATE RETURNING</code>, or <code class="command">DELETE RETURNING</code> command
- respectively. When the rule is triggered by a command without
- <code class="literal">RETURNING</code>, the rule's <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> clause will be
- ignored. The current implementation allows only unconditional
- <code class="literal">INSTEAD</code> rules to contain <code class="literal">RETURNING</code>; furthermore
- there can be at most one <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> clause among all the rules
- for the same event. (This ensures that there is only one candidate
- <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> clause to be used to compute the results.)
- <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> queries on the view will be rejected if
- there is no <code class="literal">RETURNING</code> clause in any available rule.
- </p><p>
- It is very important to take care to avoid circular rules. For
- example, though each of the following two rule definitions are
- accepted by <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>, the
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> command would cause
- <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> to report an error because
- of recursive expansion of a rule:
-
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- 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;
- </pre><p>
- </p><p>
- Presently, if a rule action contains a <code class="command">NOTIFY</code>
- command, the <code class="command">NOTIFY</code> command will be executed
- unconditionally, that is, the <code class="command">NOTIFY</code> will be
- issued even if there are not any rows that the rule should apply
- to. For example, in:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- CREATE RULE notify_me AS ON UPDATE TO mytable DO ALSO NOTIFY mytable;
-
- UPDATE mytable SET name = 'foo' WHERE id = 42;
- </pre><p>
- one <code class="command">NOTIFY</code> event will be sent during the
- <code class="command">UPDATE</code>, whether or not there are any rows that
- match the condition <code class="literal">id = 42</code>. This is an
- implementation restriction that might be fixed in future releases.
- </p></div><div class="refsect1" id="id-1.9.3.79.8"><h2>Compatibility</h2><p>
- <code class="command">CREATE RULE</code> is a
- <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> language extension, as is the
- entire query rewrite system.
- </p></div><div class="refsect1" id="id-1.9.3.79.9"><h2>See Also</h2><span class="simplelist"><a class="xref" href="sql-alterrule.html" title="ALTER RULE"><span class="refentrytitle">ALTER RULE</span></a>, <a class="xref" href="sql-droprule.html" title="DROP RULE"><span class="refentrytitle">DROP RULE</span></a></span></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="sql-createrole.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="sql-commands.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="sql-createschema.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">CREATE ROLE </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> CREATE SCHEMA</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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