You have a table that you want to add “created” and “updated” timestamp columns to, but you can’t update the application code to update those columns. In the bad old times, you had to write a trigger to do the hard work for you. Triggers introduce additional complexity and potentially even a performance impact.
So here’s a nicer way to do it, trigger-free.
DDL triggers allow you to write SQL code that executes whenever a DDL (data definition language) event occurs. This means you can capture, and handle, any event that modifies for instance stored procedures, views, DML trigger, etc. In this post, I’m going to set up a simple version control process using DDL triggers.
A trigger is like a stored procedure that automatically (and atomically) executes on a given condition, for instance when you insert a record into a table. Used properly, this is a powerful tool to enforce business rules, perform automated calculations, log changes, and more. But triggers also come with some potential pitfalls.