table partitioning pl/pgsql helpers

I'm trying to write a trigger on insert which should insert the row in another

table. The table on which to insert the row should be selected at runtime and 

it is not know in advance. For example, let's say we have a table with

two columns, a date and an integer. a row is inserted into table XXX and 

CREATE TABLE XXX

(

refdate date;

x2 integer;

)

when the statement 

insert into XXX VALUES ('2007-11-11', 1);

is executed, a trigger (or rule) should be fired to insert the row into 

table XXX_20071111 (having the same schema). If the XXX_* tables are created beforehand

this is not a problem because you can set up a rule for each date performing

the needed insert (as documented in http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/ddl-partitioning.html)

The problem arises when you try to extend the trigger in order to also dinamically

perform table creation is the XXX_20071111 doesn't exist:

I have, for example:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_child_table(parent_name varchar, d date)

RETURNS varchar AS $$

DECLARE

        new_table_name varchar;

BEGIN

      raise notice '%', 'creating table';

        new_table_name := date2tblname(parent_name, d); -- converts table name and date into child table name

        execute 'CREATE TABLE ' || new_table_name || ' ( ) INHERITS (' || parent_name || ')';

        execute 'CREATE RULE '

                || new_table_name

                || '_insert AS ON INSERT TO '

                || parent_name

                || ' WHERE ( refdate = DATE ' /* refdate is the field we use to partition */

                || '''' || d || ''''

                || ' ) DO INSTEAD INSERT INTO '

                || new_table_name

                || ' VALUES ( NEW.* )';

        return new_table_name;

END;

$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

I can use the above to add a child table and the rule to implement partitioning

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION child_creation_trigger()

RETURNS "trigger" AS $$

BEGIN

        IF ( child_exist(TG_RELNAME::text, NEW.refdate) = false ) THEN

              raise notice '%', 'creating ' || TG_RELNAME::text || ' for ' || NEW.refdate::text;

              perform add_child_table(TG_RELNAME::text, NEW.refdate);

              --insert into ' || child_table_name || ' values ( NEW.* );

              RETURN NEW;

        ELSE

              raise notice '%', 'NOT creating ' || TG_RELNAME::text || ' for ' || NEW.refdate::text;

              RETURN NEW;

        END IF;

END;

$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

The trigger function is hooked to the to-be-partitioned table 

CREATE TRIGGER XXX_trigger BEFORE INSERT

ON XXX FOR EACH ROW

execute procedure child_creation_trigger ();

now, every time I insert a tuple into XXX, the trigger is fired and checks if the needed table exists or

not. If not, it creates the table and rule and goes on. The problem is that in this case the first

row is inserted into the XXX table, not in the (just created) XXX_<refdate> . Then I tried to insert

the row myself from the trigger body (and return null in order to skip the original insertion), but

I'm not able to do it (see the commented insert in the above IF clause) because I can't properly

quote the target table name.

I shoud perform a 

insert into child_table_name values (NEW.*);

obviously written like this the plpgsql complains at runtime because child_table_name is not a table name.

If, on the other side, I dynamically create the query like in

execute 'insert into ' || child_table_name || ' values (NEW.*)';

it complains because NEW in the execution context is unknown.

This should be a rather common problem... Isn't it? Is there a canonical way to

solve it? Maybe there's a trivial answer, but I have no plpgsql programming 

experience.

Thanks a lot in advance,