> That means I have to then go through all my code and make sure I set
> the fields value. If I forget to modify one statement, things will
> break.
Right, that's why the right answer for what you want to do is to have a
trigger. I was just giving you an alternative since you didn't like the
trigger answer.
Do you have a superuser account? Pretty sure you gotta have that to
create lang. OTOH, plpgsql is a "safe" language once installed, so
you should be able to ask your hosting provider to install it. Can't
hurt to ask.
For plpgsql I don't believe it actually "installs" anything. The docs
make it sound more like it activates it. So as long as you own your
database you should be able to
createlang plpgsql