Question

I do not wish to prevent table drops, but when certain tables are dropped in a database I would like to back up either the entire table or query the rows and select specific rows into another table before the drop.

With a normal trigger on a table, if a row was deleted you could access the ‘Deleted’ table and access those deleted rows.

The DROP_TABLE trigger fires after the table is dropped.

Is there an equivalent to the Deleted table for a DROP_TABLE trigger?
Is there a different approach I could use?
Or am I going to have to re-code the business logic in the windows service which creates and drops these tables?

(I REALLY don’t want to write a trigger which rolls-back the drop, accesses and copies-out the data, then re-drops the table without firing the trigger recursively. I like inventiveness, but this is too mucky a solution for me)

I am running this on Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
and Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition (64-bit)

Answer 1

Thanks for the help guys, but to directly answer my own questions:

1. For DDL triggers (which fire for DROP TABLE), there is no equivalent to the Deleted table within DELETE/UPDATE triggers

2. There is no equivalent solution without rolling-back the drop, copying-out the data and re-issuing the drop

3. The only appropriate and correct approach is to re-code the business logic in the windows service which creates and drops these tables – to permit a soft-delete/move/rename when required