Does the Inserted table contain Identity values?

Question

I have an issue with this AFTER INSERT trigger that I'm using for auditing:

Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'TermID', table 'AuditTerms'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.

TermKeys table definition:

TermID int Identity PK
Key    int
Action int

AuditTerms table definition:

TermID     int PK
UpdatedAt  datetime

Trigger definition:

ALTER TRIGGER [dbo].[TRG_TermKeys_AuditTerms_IUD] ON [dbo].[TermKeys] 
AFTER INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE NOT FOR REPLICATION AS
BEGIN
  SET NOCOUNT ON;
  DECLARE @termid int;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM Deleted) SELECT @termid = TermID FROM Deleted;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM Inserted) SELECT @termid = TermID FROM Inserted;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT TermID FROM AuditTerms WHERE (TermID = @termid))
  BEGIN
    UPDATE AuditTerms SET UpdatedAt = getdate() WHERE (TermID = @termid);
  END
  ELSE
  BEGIN
    INSERT INTO AuditTerms (TermID, UpdatedAt) VALUES (@termid, getdate());
  END;
END;

TermID is an Identity field and the PK, does the Inserted table contain the Identity value at this point?
Should I be using @@Identity or some other way?

Answer 1

The error is caused by attempting to insert AuditTerms when there is no corresponding primary key in TermKeys. After creating the table schema and trigger in tempdb and inserting a few records in TermKeys, I was able to reproduce it by issuing a DELETE twice on the same TermID:

DELETE FROM TermKeys
WHERE TermID = 1

DELETE FROM TermKeys
WHERE TermID = 1

gives me:

Msg 515, Level 16, State 2, Procedure TRG_TermKeys_AuditTerms_IUD, Line 15 Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'TermID', table 'tempdb.dbo.AuditTerms'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. The statement has been terminated.

Something in the application code may be running the query twice; I can't see any other way to get a null value. The best way to avoid the error is to add a precautionary check of @@ROWCOUNT at the beginning of the trigger, since it will return the total number of rows affected by the DML statement that fired it.

ALTER TRIGGER [dbo].[TRG_TermKeys_AuditTerms_IUD] ON [dbo].[TermKeys] 
AFTER INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE NOT FOR REPLICATION AS
BEGIN
  -- If the trigger was fired but no rows were affected, do nothing 
  IF @@ROWCOUNT = 0
    RETURN;
  SET NOCOUNT ON;
  DECLARE @termid int;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM Deleted) SELECT @termid = TermID FROM Deleted;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM Inserted) SELECT @termid = TermID FROM Inserted;
  IF EXISTS(SELECT TermID FROM AuditTerms WHERE (TermID = @termid))
  BEGIN
    UPDATE AuditTerms SET UpdatedAt = getdate() WHERE (TermID = @termid);
  END
  ELSE
  BEGIN
    INSERT INTO AuditTerms (TermID, UpdatedAt) VALUES (@termid, getdate());
  END;
END;