Constraint raised by a trigger

Category: ConstraintVersions: 3.8.0+

🔴 Production Risk Error

Medium — trigger validation correctly rejected the DML.

What this means

SQLITE_CONSTRAINT_TRIGGER (1811) is returned when a trigger raises a constraint violation using the RAISE() function.

Why it happens

1A BEFORE or AFTER trigger called RAISE(ABORT, 'message') or RAISE(FAIL, 'message').
2Business logic enforced via triggers rejected the DML operation.

How to reproduce

INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE that fires a trigger containing RAISE().

trigger — this will ERROR

import sqlite3
conn = sqlite3.connect(':memory:')
conn.execute('CREATE TABLE t(x)')
conn.execute("""
  CREATE TRIGGER no_negatives BEFORE INSERT ON t
  BEGIN
    SELECT RAISE(ABORT, 'negative values not allowed')
    WHERE NEW.x < 0;
  END
""")
try:
    conn.execute('INSERT INTO t VALUES(-1)')
except sqlite3.IntegrityError as e:
    print(e)  # negative values not allowed

sqlite3.IntegrityError: negative values not allowed

Fix 1

Why this works

Review the trigger logic and ensure the inserted data satisfies the business rules.

Fix 2

Why this works

Validate data before INSERT to avoid triggering the RAISE.

Sources

📚 Official docs: https://www.sqlite.org/rescode.html#constraint_trigger

🔧 Source ref: sqlite3.h — SQLITE_CONSTRAINT_TRIGGER = 1811

📖 Further reading: SQLite triggers

Confidence assessment

⚠️ MEDIUM confidence

Stable.