Table is mutating, trigger/function may not see it (stopping an average grade from dropping below 2.5)

Here’s the problem:

Create a trigger that prevents any change to the taking relation that would drop the overall average grade in any particular class below 2.5. Note: This trigger is not intended to address the average GPA of any given student, but rather it should address the average grade for all grades assigned in a particular class.

Here’s the schema:

Student-schema =(studentnum, name, standing, gpa, major)
Class-schema = (schedulenum, semester, department, classnum, days, time, place, enrollment)
Instructor-schema = (name, department, office)
Teaches-schema = (name, schedulenum, semester)
Taking-schema = (studentnum, schedulenum, semester, grade)

I’m having a terrible time with these triggers, but here’s my attempt to make this work:

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER stopChange
    AFTER UPDATE OR INSERT OR DELETE ON taking
    REFERENCING OLD AS old
    NEW AS new
    FOR EACH ROW
DECLARE

grd_avg taking.grade%TYPE;

BEGIN
    SELECT AVG(grade)
    INTO grd_avg
    FROM taking
    WHERE studentnum = :new.studentnum
    AND schedulenum = :new.schedulenum
    AND semester = :new.semester;

    IF grd_avg < 2.5 THEN
        UPDATE taking
        SET grade = :old.grade
        WHERE studentnum = :old.studentnum
        AND schedulenum = :old.schedulenum
        AND semester = :old.semester;
    END IF;

END;   
/

I’m obviously doing something wrong because when I then go to update or delete a tuple, I get the error:

ERROR at line 1:
ORA-04091: table TAKING is mutating, trigger/function may not see it
ORA-06512: at "STOPCHANGE", line 6
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'STOPCHANGE'

Any advice? I’m using Oracle.

Answer

I think you can fix this by rewriting this as a before trigger, rather than an after trigger. However, this might be a little complicated for inserts and deletes. The idea is:

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER stopChange
    BEFORE UPDATE OR INSERT OR DELETE ON taking
    REFERENCING OLD AS old
    NEW AS new
    FOR EACH ROW
DECLARE

grd_avg taking.grade%TYPE;

BEGIN
    SELECT (SUM(grade) - oldgrade + new.grade) / count(*)
    INTO grd_avg
    FROM taking
    WHERE studentnum = :new.studentnum
    AND schedulenum = :new.schedulenum
    AND semester = :new.semester;

    IF grd_avg < 2.5 THEN
        new.grade = old.grade
    END IF;
END;