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Difference Between a Trigger and a Stored Procedure in Oracle

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In Oracle, the main difference between a trigger and a stored procedure lies in their invocation and usage.

Trigger:

• Focus Keyword: Trigger
• A trigger is a specialized type of stored program that is automatically fired (or activated) in response to specific events or actions on a table, such as insert, update, or delete operations.
• Triggers can be defined to enforce referential integrity, data consistency, audit changes, or automatically perform specific actions on data modifications.
• They are often used for managing complex business rules or automating tasks while ensuring data integrity.
• A trigger cannot be explicitly called like a procedure; instead, it is invoked implicitly by the database engine based on the defined trigger conditions.

Stored Procedure:

• Focus Keyword: Stored Procedure
• A stored procedure is a named and pre-compiled set of SQL and procedural statements that performs a specific task or set of tasks.
• Stored procedures are explicitly called or executed by applications to perform operations such as data retrieval, manipulation, or calculations.
• They are reusable units of code that can accept input parameters and return result sets or output parameters.
• Unlike triggers, stored procedures do not get activated automatically; they need to be explicitly invoked by the user or application.

In summary, while both triggers and stored procedures in Oracle are used for automating tasks and implementing business logic, triggers are event-driven entities that are automatically executed, whereas stored procedures are user-invoked and reusable code units.