logging

[Maurice]

Hello there,

One of my colleges asked me this question:
How can I log the actions which a user or system performs on a record
(for almost all the records in the tables of a database) ?

Something like this:
date time action user
01/07/2000 10:20 ADD John
02/07/2000 11:21 UPDATE Jim
02/07/2000 11:22 UPDATE Sandra

Is this functionality all in "VST" ?

Before I start thinking about this, I want to ask you if somebody already has a solution and what this solution is...

Maurice

mstassen@datamex.nl

 

[jamesmc]

Hi there Maurice,

Sounds like you want to use database triggers. You will be able to assign triggers to events such like ASSIGN, CREATE, DELETE, FIND and WRITE of database records.

I have not used these in any of my applications but I am sure that another reader will be able to help you, also the Progress help files?

HTH,

James.

 

[Maurice]

Yes, but my specific quentions are:

What's the best way to store the information?
How can I make it work for all the tables?

 

[jamesmc]

Maurice,

I personally would store the information within a table in the database. This option would offer better security so that only authorised users could gain access to it, and it would give me the ability to create reports from it to analyze the data that is gathered.

I suppose the other option would be to store the information in a text file although it would make it cumbersome to ready when you have a lot of activity that has been reported (or you could break the text file down by date (like 200700.log) but even this would become cumbersome after several weeks!).

As for how to implement the triggers database wide, I don't know if you have to work on a table by table basis or whether you can just apply the same triggers to the database in one go? Perhaps someone else might be able to help?

HTH,

James.

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Arial, Verdana">[This message has been edited by jamesmc on 25 July 2000 @ ]</font>