Both of these are used by us to perform some specific tasks in a table of a database, but there is a major difference between Trigger and Procedure in DBMS. And in this article, we are going to discuss the same in detail. We implicitly invoke a trigger whenever a triggering event like DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, etc., occurs inside any TABLE. We explicitly call a procedure by an application/individual user using various statements or commands like EXECUTE or procedure_name. Read ahead to learn more differences between Trigger and Procedure in DBMS.
What is Trigger in DBMS?
The trigger is a term that refers to a special type of procedure that only gets executed when some triggering event occurs, like DELETE, UPDATE, INSERT, etc.
What is Procedure in DBMS?
The procedure is a term that refers to the combination of various SQL statements that are written so as to perform some specific task. A procedure helps users to reuse codes, and thus, saves a lot of time in writing or generating extra lines of codes.
Difference between Trigger and Procedure in DBMS
Let us talk about the differences between Trigger and Procedure in DBMS.
| Parameters | Trigger | Procedure |
| Invoking/Calling | We implicitly invoke a trigger whenever a triggering event like DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, etc., occurs inside any TABLE. | We explicitly call a procedure by an application/individual user using various statements or commands like EXECUTE or procedure_name. |
| Inside Calling/Invoking | Triggers can only be nested inside a table. Calling/defining a trigger inside a given (another) trigger is simply not possible. | Procedures can be easily called/defined inside another given procedure. |
| Syntax | The syntax that defines a trigger inside a database is:
CREATE TRIGGER TRIGGER_NAME |
The syntax that defines a procedure inside a database is:
CREATE PROCEDURE PROCEDURE_NAME |
| Transaction Statements | None of the transaction statements like SAVEPOINT, ROLLBACK, COMIT, etc., are allowed in triggers. | All sorts of transaction statements like ROLLBACK and COMMIT are allowed in the available procedures. |
| Scheduling | We cannot schedule a trigger. | We can schedule a job that we want to execute in the form of a stored procedure of a job. |
| Parameter Inputs | Stored parameters cannot be taken as inputs by a trigger. | Parameters can be taken in the form of inputs by a stored procedure. |
| Execution | A trigger gets executed automatically when certain commands are seen on a table. | We use the EXEC command to execute a parameter since these are not automatic in nature. |
| Uses and Primary Function | We mainly make use of triggers for maintaining referential integrity while keeping a record of all the activities that are performed on a given table. | We mainly make use of procedures when we want to perform the tasks that are specifically specified or defined by the users. |
| Returning of Values | Values cannot be ever returned in a trigger. As a matter of fact, no values can be passed as a parameter as an input. | One can easily return 0 to n values in a procedure. However, the values can be passed as parameters in this case. |
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