Re: table partitioning pl/pgsql helpers - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Wednesday 30 May 2007 12:55, Enrico Sirola wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to write a trigger on insert which should insert the row
> in another
> table. The table on which to insert the row should be selected at
> runtime and
> it is not know in advance. For example, let's say we have a table with
> two columns, a date and an integer. a row is inserted into table XXX and
>
> CREATE TABLE XXX
> (
>     refdate date;
>     x2 integer;
> )
>
> when the statement
>
> insert into XXX VALUES ('2007-11-11', 1);
>
> is executed, a trigger (or rule) should be fired to insert the row into
> table XXX_20071111 (having the same schema). If the XXX_* tables are
> created beforehand
> this is not a problem because you can set up a rule for each date
> performing
> the needed insert (as documented in http://www.postgresql.org/docs/
> 8.1/interactive/ddl-partitioning.html)
>
> The problem arises when you try to extend the trigger in order to
> also dinamically
> perform table creation is the XXX_20071111 doesn't exist:
>
> I have, for example:
>
>
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_child_table(parent_name varchar, d date)
> RETURNS varchar AS $$
> DECLARE
>          new_table_name varchar;
> BEGIN
>        raise notice '%', 'creating table';
>          new_table_name := date2tblname(parent_name, d); -- converts
> table name and date into child table name
>          execute 'CREATE TABLE ' || new_table_name || ' ( ) INHERITS
> (' || parent_name || ')';
>          execute 'CREATE RULE '
>
>                  || new_table_name
>                  || '_insert AS ON INSERT TO '
>                  || parent_name
>                  || ' WHERE ( refdate = DATE ' /* refdate is the
>
> field we use to partition */
>
>                  || '''' || d || ''''
>                  || ' ) DO INSTEAD INSERT INTO '
>                  || new_table_name
>                  || ' VALUES ( NEW.* )';
>
>          return new_table_name;
> END;
> $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
>
> I can use the above to add a child table and the rule to implement
> partitioning
>
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION child_creation_trigger()
> RETURNS "trigger" AS $$
> BEGIN
>          IF ( child_exist(TG_RELNAME::text, NEW.refdate) = false ) THEN
>                raise notice '%', 'creating ' || TG_RELNAME::text || '
> for ' || NEW.refdate::text;
>                perform add_child_table(TG_RELNAME::text, NEW.refdate);
>                --insert into ' || child_table_name || ' values
> ( NEW.* );
>                RETURN NEW;
>          ELSE
>                raise notice '%', 'NOT creating ' || TG_RELNAME::text
>
> || ' for ' || NEW.refdate::text;
>
>                RETURN NEW;
>          END IF;
> END;
> $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
>
> The trigger function is hooked to the to-be-partitioned table
>
>
> CREATE TRIGGER XXX_trigger BEFORE INSERT
> ON XXX FOR EACH ROW
> execute procedure child_creation_trigger ();
>
>
> now, every time I insert a tuple into XXX, the trigger is fired and
> checks if the needed table exists or
> not. If not, it creates the table and rule and goes on. The problem
> is that in this case the first
> row is inserted into the XXX table, not in the (just created)
> XXX_<refdate> . Then I tried to insert
> the row myself from the trigger body (and return null in order to
> skip the original insertion), but
> I'm not able to do it (see the commented insert in the above IF
> clause) because I can't properly
> quote the target table name.
> I shoud perform a
>
> insert into child_table_name values (NEW.*);
>
> obviously written like this the plpgsql complains at runtime because
> child_table_name is not a table name.
> If, on the other side, I dynamically create the query like in
>
> execute 'insert into ' || child_table_name || ' values (NEW.*)';
>
> it complains because NEW in the execution context is unknown.
>
> This should be a rather common problem... Isn't it? Is there a
> canonical way to
> solve it? Maybe there's a trivial answer, but I have no plpgsql
> programming
> experience.
>

We I set these up for our clients, I typically seperate the partition creation
piece from the data insertion piece.  (Mostly as partition creation,
especially with rules, is a table locking event, which is better done in a
non-critical path).  If you really must do it all in one go, you'll have a
much better chance of accomplishing this using all triggers (and triggers are
better anyway)... i think you could do it with a combination of rules and a
trigger (on insert to parent, create new parition and insert into it and
delete from parent) but it would certainly need testing to make sure you dont
have multi-rule evaluation... course since your making a trigger anyway...

--
Robert Treat
Database Architect
http://www.omniti.com