Question

I’m using Oracle 10g Express or Oracle XE. In the EMPLOYEES table I want to add another column call last_modified that automatically generate current date or date/time if it has been modified. I know there is this rowscn(timestamp) thing that’s only available from oracle 10g onwards but I want to manually create one because my client is using oracle 9i but I only have 10g to do the testing. Also I’ve never use oracle before. This is for some integration project with Lotus Notes. Therefore if possible I want the date or date/time to recognizable by LotusScript.

Answer 1

Add a column of type TIMESTAMP to the table (might not be available in the de-supported 9i version, but then just use DATE instead).

alter table employees add (modified_at timestamp);

Then create a trigger that is fired on update which simply sets that column to sysdate:

create or replace trigger update_modified
  before update on employees
  for each row
begin
  :new.modified_at := sysdate;
end;
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