Re: Can't update table 'tbl' in stored function/trigger because it is already used by statement which invoked this stored function/trigger

[Jody Robbins]

I know this is an old post but I stumbled on the answer and thought I would share. During the insert/update you have access to the NEW object which contains all of the fields in the table involved. If you do a before insert/update and edit the field(s) that you want to change in the new object it will become a part of the calling statement and not be executed as a separately (eliminating the recursion)
ex.
create trigger test
before update on test
for each row
set NEW.updateTime = NOW();