What is the difference between tsvector_update_trigger and ts_vector generated column?

Question

Newbie to full text search, I have a feed_items table as follows

feed_items (...title varchar, summary varchar, fullarticle varchar,...)

I want to create a ts_vector column to search query from either the title or the summary with higher priority given if the query is found in the title.

Option 1 I can create a generated column which goes like this

ALTER TABLE feed_items
    ADD COLUMN textsearchable_index_col tsvector
               GENERATED ALWAYS AS (to_tsvector('english', coalesce(title, '') || ' ' || coalesce(summary, ''))) STORED;

Option 2 I can create a trigger after insert or update like this, the example below is not perfect, I created a separate column for title_vector and summary_vector but I think I need to merge them into one column and yet decide how to give more importance to query found in title

ALTER TABLE "feed_items"
  ADD IF NOT EXISTS "title_vector" tsvector;
COMMENT ON COLUMN "feed_items"."title_vector" IS $pga$vector representation of title$pga$;
UPDATE feed_items SET title_vector = to_tsvector('english', title);
CREATE INDEX "idx_title_vector" ON "feed_items" USING gin ("title_vector");
CREATE TRIGGER "trigger_update_title_vector"
  BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON "feed_items"
  FOR EACH ROW
  EXECUTE PROCEDURE "tsvector_update_trigger"($pga$title_vector$pga$, $pga$pg_catalog.english$pga$, $pga$title$pga$);

My main question is what is the difference between both? and which one should I use?

Answer 1

The trigger method is obsolete. If you are using a version that supports using generated columns on expressions, then you should use them. And if you are starting a new project, you should absolutely start out with a version at least that new (v12).

Answer 2

I think both ways are not ideal, since they persist unnecessary data.

I would not add an extra column, but define a GIN index on the expression:

CREATE INDEX ON feed_items USING gin (
   to_tsvector('english', concat(title, ' ', summary))
);

concat treats NULL values as empty strings, so that is simpler.

Your full-text search will then have

... WHERE to_tsvector('english', concat(title, ' ', summary)) @@ whatever