will trigger for UPDATE on the Table will be recursive

Question

I have trigger UPDATETRIGGER on table TEST,

It was written to get called when the TEST table is updated.

Now in this UPDATETRIGGER is updating a column of the same TEST table.

Will this be recursive?

My trigger and table is in MS SQL database. From the table values i see that it is not happening such way could any one explain please.

USE [TESTING]
GO
/****** Object:  Trigger [dbo].[UPDATETRIGGER] ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
ALTER TRIGGER [dbo].[UPDATETRIGGER] on [dbo].[TEST]
 FOR UPDATE 
 AS
  UPDATE dbo.TEST
    SET lastEditedDate=GetDate()
    FROM INSERTED newdata
    WHERE TEST.MasterK = newdata.MasterK

Answer 1

Trigger events can be fired within another trigger action. One Trigger execution can trigger even on another table or same table. This trigger is called NESTED TRIGGER or RECURSIVE TRIGGER. Nested triggers in SQL Server supports the nesting of triggers up to a maximum of 32 levels.

Nesting means that when a trigger is fired, it will also cause another trigger to be fired. If a trigger creates an infinitive loop, the nesting level of 32 will be exceeded and the trigger will cancel with an error message. Recursive triggers is when a trigger fires and performs a statement that will cause the same trigger to fire.

Disabling Nesting/Recursing Triggers: The following script will stop executing all the nested triggers.

sp_CONFIGURE 'nested_triggers',0
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO

There is also alternate way to stop Trigger Recursion:

ALTER DATABASE databasename
SET RECURSIVE_TRIGGERS ON | OFF

Restrict Trigger Nesting to certain level Put following script in trigger code. This will stop the trigger recursion after certain levels. In following case it will stop after 5 recursion.

IF ((
SELECT TRIGGER_NESTLEVEL()) > 5 )
RETURN

ref:- http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/05/18/sql-server-2005-understanding-trigger-recursion-and-nesting-with-examples/