Informix Error -730

Reasons / Common Causes

-730 fires when CREATE TRIGGER includes a REFERENCING clause (naming OLD/NEW correlation names) without a FOR EACH ROW section — per the official guidance, REFERENCING only makes sense paired with row-level triggered actions, since it names the specific row's before/after values.

1. A REFERENCING clause included on a statement-level trigger (no FOR EACH ROW), per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. A trigger copied from a row-level template but with the FOR EACH ROW section accidentally dropped, leaving REFERENCING behind without what it depends on.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Remove the REFERENCING clause, per the official guidance, if a statement-level trigger (no row-level action) was actually intended.
2. Or add the missing FOR EACH ROW keywords, followed by the triggered actions, per the official guidance, if row-level behavior was actually intended.

Examples

The disallowed combination

CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_update UPDATE OF status ON orders
  REFERENCING NEW AS post
  (INSERT INTO audit_log VALUES ('orders updated'));
-- -730: REFERENCING without FOR EACH ROW

Corrected — remove REFERENCING for a statement-level trigger

CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_update UPDATE OF status ON orders
  (INSERT INTO audit_log VALUES ('orders updated'));

Or corrected — add FOR EACH ROW for row-level behavior

CREATE TRIGGER trg_orders_update UPDATE OF status ON orders
  REFERENCING NEW AS post FOR EACH ROW
  (EXECUTE PROCEDURE log_status_change(post.status));

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check whether the CREATE TRIGGER statement includes both REFERENCING and FOR EACH ROW, or neither — the combination of one without the other 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 list entirely, rather than a REFERENCING/FOR EACH ROW mismatch.

REFERENCING requires FOR EACH ROW — remove one or add the other, depending on whether row-level behavior was actually intended.