Calling an url from a trigger in mysql

Question

I know it\'s highly unrecommended,

I know that it\'s an issue with performance, speed, etc, but it\'s for an integration, and they only are doing their updates via m

Answer 1

To trigger an external action, you have to use a UDF - it's the only way for mysql to tell something to the "outside world". The only alternative is an external agent polling the DB constantly - which is an inferior solution.

As for the choice of a UDF,

• to minimize load on the DB, it should probably be something that finishes quickly (note that UDFs run synchronously).
• So, unless the installation is sufficiently small-scale, it's going to merely notify an external agent of the event. This also minimizes error handling at the DB side.
  • Otherwise, if you don't (yet) care, you can e.g. just spawn curl for all it's worth.

Ways that come to mind:

• spawn a small program - e.g. touch some file which the agent watches. There's an existing sys_exec that uses system() (with all due considerations).
• IPC (signal is the simplest; with others, you can pass additional information but it requires more setup)

As the sys_exec's source shows, it's not so hard to write a UDF, so you aren't really limited to what's already available (this may explain why lib_mysqludf_sys is so limited: if you need something better, it's sufficiently easy to write a task-specific function). The current docs are at 26.4.2 Adding a New User-Defined Function - MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual.