Re: minimal update

Tom Lane wrote:
> David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
>   
>> On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 11:49:38AM -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>>     
>>> At the moment I have to write things like:
>>>
>>> update tname set foo = bar ...  where foo is null or foo <> bar
>>>       
>
>   
>> One way I've done this is make RULEs which basically drop non-updating
>> "UPDATEs" on the floor.
>>     
>
> A BEFORE UPDATE trigger would be better, and probably hardly more
> expensive than a wired-in facility (especially if you were willing to
> write it in C).
>
>             
>   

Yes. I also  prefer the trigger idea to a rule because triggers are easy 
to enable  and disable. It's still a lot of work for what must be a 
common want, though. Could it be done generically?

cheers

andrew