brasso_42
asked on
MSSQL 2012 - Date a record was added
Hi
Is there any way to find out what date a record was added to a table other than adding a date field and putting the date in there at the point of creating the record?
e.g table1
Name Tel_No
Fred 1234
Bob 4321
How can I tell when bob was added to the table?
Thanks
Is there any way to find out what date a record was added to a table other than adding a date field and putting the date in there at the point of creating the record?
e.g table1
Name Tel_No
Fred 1234
Bob 4321
How can I tell when bob was added to the table?
Thanks
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You can also log this outside of the main table itself. I prefer that, although developers don't, in my experience.
Developers love to put all those extra columns in *every* table, but they obviously increase the row size, sometimes drastically (on some intersection tables, the create & update cols are more bytes than the actual data in the row!).
If you're going to add these types of columns in the table itself, at least use an int id rather than varchar(), by creating a separate lookup table for the names.
Developers love to put all those extra columns in *every* table, but they obviously increase the row size, sometimes drastically (on some intersection tables, the create & update cols are more bytes than the actual data in the row!).
If you're going to add these types of columns in the table itself, at least use an int id rather than varchar(), by creating a separate lookup table for the names.
In theory, if the table uses an identity column, you could also get the date by simply capturing the id number every day at midnight, then looking up the id number to see which day range it falls into. For more precise time, you could capture the identity value every hour, or even every minute.
Of course if the identity value gets reset you could have issues, but many tables will truly never do that because it would also destroy the app itself. If they're truly being used, the new values would simply replace the old values in the id-->date conversion table.
Of course if the identity value gets reset you could have issues, but many tables will truly never do that because it would also destroy the app itself. If they're truly being used, the new values would simply replace the old values in the id-->date conversion table.
ASKER
Thanks for your help!
Scott - I created a new question asking about the better ways to handle these 'auditing' columns, per your comments. I'm genuinely interested in how you're currently pulling this off. Thanks.
I'll Monitor the new q for a while before I say anything, to allow others to present their thoughts on this. I suspect strongly that DBAs and developers will see this q quite differently :).
Btw, I am on the DBA side, and thus against "automatically" adding ~40 bytes and two triggers to every table :).
Btw, I am on the DBA side, and thus against "automatically" adding ~40 bytes and two triggers to every table :).
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It is not retrospective, but when add the current date and time when a new record is entered.