[Tfug] RDBMS audit trails?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi,

> > > > Yes.  But, I figure I could treat the
> "log"
> > > table as a
> > > > FIFO and limit its size in the trigger code.
>  I had
> > > > assumed something like this would be
> something that
> > > > users would *want* -- even if only for
> testing
> > > > purposes -- hence the question.
> > > 
> > > Limiting the size of a table isn't a problem.
>  Just
> > > include a datetime
> > > stamp and add an INSERT/UPDATE trigger that
> conditionally
> > > deletes the
> > > oldest records.
> > 
> > I figured on being even cruder -- just delete the
> "first"
> > record after adding the "last" record. 
> (i.e., initialize
> > the table with N empty records -- where N is the depth
> > of the FIFO you want to preserve)
> 
> Uh-uh.  Remember - relational database tables are
> unordered.  There is
> no "first" or "last" record.  You could

"First" is whatever I define to be oldest.  *How*
I do that can vary (autonumber, timestamp, updating
my own counter, etc.)

> do an autonumber field but
> those are proprietary and can be wonky.  If you're
> going to do this
> (which, again, I think is a very problematic application of

How else can I do this *portably*?
Aside from Oracle, I don't see DBMS's having built-in
audit trail mechanisms...

> NIH), use datetime.