Question

I want to create a trigger that runs just before a row in a table is updated, and writes all the fields in the row before it is updated to an archive table. What would be the correct syntax required to gain access to the row fields before the update so that I can write them into my archive table?

EDIT :

So this should do what I want, but it doesn’t seem to work. I get the error ‘there is already an object called config_SystemSettings in the database :

CREATE TRIGGER [config].[UpdateSystemSettings]

ON [config].[SystemSetting]
AFTER UPDATE
AS
BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON;

SELECT old.settingId, old.campId, old.settingKey, old.settingValue
into [history].[config_SystemSettings]
FROM [config].[SystemSetting] AS old
INNER JOIN deleted AS del ON del.settingId = old.settingId

END
GO

Answer 1

SELECT ... INTO always wants to create a new table – so use INSERT ... SELECT instead:

CREATE TRIGGER [config].[UpdateSystemSettings]

ON [config].[SystemSetting] AFTER UPDATE AS BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;

insert into [history].[config_SystemSettings] (settingId,campId,settingKey,settingValue)
SELECT old.settingId, old.campId, old.settingKey, old.settingValue
FROM [config].[SystemSetting] AS old
INNER JOIN deleted AS del ON del.settingId = old.settingId

But you will have to explicitly create [history].[config_SystemSettings] first.