Appendix L: Audit Logging

Audit Logging is the means by which changes to the database (inserts, updates and deletes) are recorded in a separate 'audit' database so that they can be reviewed later.

This facility comes in two parts:

• Writing to the audit log is performed automatically by code within the standard DML class within my development infrastructure, therefore no additional coding is required in any application components. Logging can be enabled or disabled for individual database tables by setting the AUDIT_LOGGING field in the Update Table screen of the Data Dictionary.
• Viewing the contents of the audit log is done using a few simple screens:
  • Search Audit Details
  • List Audit Details
  • List Audit Details for an Object
  • Generate SQL
  • List Logon Errors

There is also an option which will generate an SQL query based on the current audit log entry so that the same change can be duplicated in another copy of the database.

The details for this facility are described in Creating an Audit Log with an online viewing facility.

The following tasks which can be added to the navigation bar of any other task in the system. These will take you automatically to the List Audit Details for an Object screen using current context without having to navigate through the Search Audit Detail screen. There are two options available:

• List Audit Details for an Object - This will take the primary key(s) for the selected object(s) and search for entries in the audit database which have a value for PKEY which is LIKE the pkey of the selected object. For example, if the object's primary key is parent_id='A' this will match with entries in the audit database which have a primary key among the following:

  parent_id='A'
  parent_id='A' AND child_id='B'
  parent_id='A' AND child_id='B' AND grandchild_id='C'
  

  In addition the search will be limited to entries which belong to the current database.

• List Audit Details for an Object (exact match) - There may be cases where including all child and grandchild entries will produce a list that is too cumbersome, so this option will only extract those audit entries which have an exact match in PKEY with the object's primary key. Using the previous example only the following entries on the audit database would be included:

  parent_id='A'
  

  while the following would be excluded:

  parent_id='A' AND child_id='B'
  parent_id='A' AND child_id='B' AND grandchild_id='C'
  

  In addition the search will be limited to entries which belong to the current database and table.