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In this guide, we will explain how to create a BEFORE INSERT Trigger in MySQL with syntax and examples.

Description

A BEFORE INSERT Trigger means that MySQL will fire this trigger before the INSERT operation is executed.

Syntax

The syntax to create a BEFORE INSERT Trigger in MySQL is:

CREATE TRIGGER trigger_name
BEFORE INSERT
   ON table_name FOR EACH ROW

BEGIN

   -- variable declarations

   -- trigger code

END;

Parameters or Arguments

trigger_nameThe name of the trigger to create.BEFORE INSERTIt indicates that the trigger will fire before the INSERT operation is executed.table_nameThe name of the table that the trigger is created on.

Restrictions

• You can not create a BEFORE trigger on a view.
• You can update the NEW values.
• You can not update the OLD values.

Note

• See also how to create AFTER DELETE, AFTER INSERT, AFTER UPDATE, BEFORE DELETE, and BEFORE UPDATE triggers.
• See also how to drop a trigger.

Example

Let’s look at an example of how to create an BEFORE INSERT trigger using the CREATE TRIGGER statement in MySQL.

If you had a table created as follows:

CREATE TABLE contacts
( contact_id INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  last_name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
  first_name VARCHAR(25),
  birthday DATE,
  created_date DATE,
  created_by VARCHAR(30),
  CONSTRAINT contacts_pk PRIMARY KEY (contact_id)
);

We could then use the CREATE TRIGGER statement to create an BEFORE INSERT trigger as follows:

DELIMITER //

CREATE TRIGGER contacts_before_insert
BEFORE INSERT
   ON contacts FOR EACH ROW

BEGIN

   DECLARE vUser varchar(50);

   -- Find username of person performing INSERT into table
   SELECT USER() INTO vUser;

   -- Update create_date field to current system date
   SET NEW.created_date = SYSDATE();

   -- Update created_by field to the username of the person performing the INSERT
   SET NEW.created_by = vUser;

END; //

DELIMITER ;

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