MySQL triggers cannot update rows in same table the trigger is assigned to. Suggested workaround?

Question

MySQL doesn't currently support updating rows in the same table the trigger is assigned to since the call could become recursive. Does anyone have suggestions on a good workaround/alternative? Right now my plan is to call a stored procedure that performs the logic I really wanted in a trigger, but I'd love to hear how others have gotten around this limitation.

Edit: A little more background as requested. I have a table that stores product attribute assignments. When a new parent product record is inserted, I'd like the trigger to perform a corresponding insert in the same table for each child record. This denormalization is necessary for performance. MySQL doesn't support this and throws:

Can't update table 'mytable' in stored function/trigger because it is already used by statement which invoked this stored function/trigger. A long discussion on the issue on the MySQL forums basically lead to: Use a stored proc, which is what I went with for now.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can actually up the rows in the same table as the trigger. The thread you linked to even has the solution.

For example:

TestTable ( id / lastmodified / random )

create trigger insert_lastmod
before insert on TestTable
for each row
set NEW.lastmodified = NOW();

insert into TestTable ( `random` ) values ( 'Random' );

select * from TestTable;
+----+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | lastmodified        | random              |
+----+---------------------+---------------------+
|  1 | 2010-12-22 14:15:23 | Random              |
+----+---------------------+---------------------+

Answer 2

I suppose you could call the stored proc in your trigger. HOwever, if you want to update some fields in the same records that you are changing (such as an updatedby or lastupdated column) then you can do this in a beofre trigger according to the refernce manual. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/trigger-syntax.html

This is a common operation for triggers and I find it difficult to believe it isn't supported.