Why am I NOT getting a mutating table error in trigger?

Question

It's (or at least was) known that you cannot use DML statements on a mutating table inside a trigger. An excerpt from the Oracle documentation:

A mutating table is a table that is being modified by an UPDATE, DELETE, or INSERT statement, or a table that might be updated by the effects of a DELETE CASCADE constraint.

The session that issued the triggering statement cannot query or modify a mutating table. This restriction prevents a trigger from seeing an inconsistent set of data.

However, I cannot understand why this demo trigger is not failing with a "mutating table" error when I perform an insert into emp using SQL Developer or SQL*Plus:

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER emp_bri   
  BEFORE INSERT ON emp 
    FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN

  SELECT max(id) + 1 INTO :NEW.id FROM emp;
  UPDATE emp SET salary = 5000;

END emp_bri;

The insertion completes successfully with the next id value and updates all emp records. I'm using Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0. I have read about compound triggers but the sample does not use them.

Answer 1

There is an exception. When you define a before insert, row-level trigger on a table and issue a single row INSERT statement, the table is mutating error will not be raised. But if you define the same kind of trigger and issue a multi-row INSERT statement, the error will be raised. Here is an example:

SQL> create table TB_TR_TEST(
  2    col1 number,
  3    col2 number
  4  )
  5  ;

Table created

SQL> create or replace trigger TR_TB_TR_TEST
  2  before insert on TB_TR_TEST
  3  for each row
  4  begin
  5    SELECT max(col1) + 1 INTO :NEW.col1
  6      FROM TB_TR_TEST;
  7    UPDATE TB_TR_TEST SET col2 = 5000;
  8  end;
  9  /

Trigger created

Here is a single-row insert statement, which won't raise mutating table error:

SQL> insert into TB_TR_TEST(col1, col2) values(1,2);

1 row inserted

SQL> insert into TB_TR_TEST(col1, col2) values(3,5);

1 row inserted

SQL> commit;

Commit complete

Here is a multi-row insert statement, which will raise mutating table error:

SQL> insert into TB_TR_TEST(col1, col2)
  2    select 1, 2
  3      from dual;

insert into TB_TR_TEST(col1, col2)
  select 1, 2
    from dual

ORA-04091: table HR.TB_TR_TEST is mutating, trigger/function may not see it
ORA-06512: at "HR.TR_TB_TR_TEST", line 2
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'HR.TR_TB_TR_TEST'