Question

I have a mysql database and the application which connects to it, dumps required tables into xml, imports some info from them and then works on this info.

However I have no idea how to check if these xml files need updating while application starts.

I thought about checking if number of entries has changed but if someone modifies existing entry it won’t be updated. Overwriting all files each time and importing them again takes too much time.
Unfortunately I cannot modify database to create a field which stores a “last modification” information.

Have you got any idea?

Answer 1

Create a modify/insert trigger. I you can do it.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/triggers.html

The purpose of this trigger is to update another table when your table is altered.