Informix Error -731

Reasons / Common Causes

-731 fires when an INSERT or DELETE trigger's EXECUTE PROCEDURE action includes an INTO clause naming columns — per the official guidance, an INTO clause on the triggered action is only meaningful for an UPDATE trigger, where it can receive the new column values; insert and delete triggers don't have that kind of before/after column data to receive.

1. An INSERT/DELETE trigger's EXECUTE PROCEDURE action written with an INTO clause, per the official guidance — copied from an UPDATE trigger template without removing the INTO clause.
2. A misunderstanding of what INTO does in a triggered action, expecting it to work the same way across all three trigger event types.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Remove the column names from the INTO clause, per the official guidance — for INSERT/DELETE triggers, the EXECUTE PROCEDURE action shouldn't have one at all.
2. If column values genuinely need to be passed to the procedure, pass them as arguments instead, using the trigger's REFERENCING correlation name:

   CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_insert INSERT ON orders
     REFERENCING NEW AS post FOR EACH ROW
     (EXECUTE PROCEDURE log_new_order(post.order_id, post.status));
   

Examples

The disallowed attempt

CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_insert INSERT ON orders
  REFERENCING NEW AS post FOR EACH ROW
  (EXECUTE PROCEDURE log_new_order() INTO post.order_id);
-- -731: INTO isn't valid in an insert trigger's action

Corrected — pass values as arguments instead

CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_insert INSERT ON orders
  REFERENCING NEW AS post FOR EACH ROW
  (EXECUTE PROCEDURE log_new_order(post.order_id));

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check whether the trigger is INSERT/DELETE (rather than UPDATE) and whether its EXECUTE PROCEDURE action includes an INTO clause — the combination is what triggers this error.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -729 — "Trigger has no triggered action." A related CREATE TRIGGER structural error, about a missing action rather than an invalid INTO clause on one.
• -730 — "Cannot specify REFERENCING if trigger does not have FOR EACH ROW." A related CREATE TRIGGER structural error, about REFERENCING/FOR EACH ROW pairing.

INTO on a triggered action is UPDATE-trigger-only — remove it from INSERT/DELETE triggers, passing values as ordinary procedure arguments instead.