Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> Well, yeah. That's exactly how it's documented to work: an ON INSERT
>> rule is executed after the INSERT proper.
> I'm confused. DO INSTEAD doesn't mean DO INSTEAD?
It does. What it doesn't mean is "IF ... THEN ... ELSE ...".
The OP's rule actually works more like
if (!(EXISTS ...))
INSERT ...
if ((EXISTS ...))
UPDATE ...
>> You could maybe make this work with a BEFORE INSERT trigger.
> I'm not sure you can make it reliable though.
Concurrent inserts make things even more interesting, yes; but the rule
had no hope of handling that anyway.
regards, tom lane