I have a related question, but this is another part of MY puzzle.

I would like to get the OLD VALUE of a Column from a Row that was UPDATEd... WITHOUT using Triggers (nor Stored Procedures, nor any other extra, non-SQL/-query entities).

The query I have is like this:

   UPDATE my_table
      SET processing_by = our_id_info -- unique to this instance
    WHERE trans_nbr IN (
                          SELECT trans_nbr
                            FROM my_table
                        GROUP BY trans_nbr
                          HAVING COUNT(trans_nbr) > 1
                           LIMIT our_limit_to_have_single_process_grab
                       )
RETURNING row_id

If I could do "FOR UPDATE ON my_table" at the end of the subquery, that'd be devine (and fix my other question/problem). But, that won't work: can't have this AND a "GROUP BY" (which is necessary for figuring out the COUNT of trans_nbr's). Then I could just take those trans_nbr's and do a query first to get the (soon-to-be-) former processing_by values.

I've tried doing like:

   UPDATE my_table
      SET processing_by = our_id_info -- unique to this instance
     FROM my_table old_my_table
     JOIN (
             SELECT trans_nbr
               FROM my_table
           GROUP BY trans_nbr
             HAVING COUNT(trans_nbr) > 1
              LIMIT our_limit_to_have_single_process_grab
          ) sub_my_table
       ON old_my_table.trans_nbr = sub_my_table.trans_nbr
    WHERE     my_table.trans_nbr = sub_my_table.trans_nbr
      AND my_table.processing_by = old_my_table.processing_by
RETURNING my_table.row_id, my_table.processing_by, old_my_table.processing_by

But that can't work; "old_my_table" is not viewable outside of the join; the RETURNING clause is blind to it.

I've long since lost count of all the attempts I've made; I have been researching this for literally hours.

If I could just find a bullet-proof way to lock the rows in my subquery - and ONLY those rows, and WHEN the subquery happens - all the concurrency issues I'm trying to avoid disappear...

UPDATE: [WIPES EGG OFF FACE] Okay, so I had a typo in the non-generic code of the above that I wrote "doesn't work"; it does... thanks to Erwin Brandstetter, below, who stated it would, I re-did it (after a night's sleep, refreshed eyes, and a banana for bfast). Since it took me so long/hard to find this sort of solution, perhaps my embarrassment is worth it? At least this is on SO for posterity now... :>

What I now have (that works) is like this:

   UPDATE my_table
      SET processing_by = our_id_info -- unique to this instance
     FROM my_table AS old_my_table
    WHERE trans_nbr IN (
                          SELECT trans_nbr
                            FROM my_table
                        GROUP BY trans_nbr
                          HAVING COUNT(*) > 1
                           LIMIT our_limit_to_have_single_process_grab
                       )
      AND my_table.row_id = old_my_table.row_id
RETURNING my_table.row_id, my_table.processing_by, old_my_table.processing_by AS old_processing_by

The COUNT(*) is per a suggestion from Flimzy in a comment on my other (linked above) question. (I was more specific than necessary. [In this instance.])