NewbieQ -- Auditing multiple tables

We are attempting to convert the company from Ingres- to Oracle-based applications, using no documentation and damned little technical help. So if this question is really really stupid, consider that I don't know much about what I'm trying to talk about.

Assume, say, three tables that are all updated by a single transaction. I need to know who updated those tables, when, and what the data looked like before and after the transaction. I need to be able to pull that information back as a single line on an audit-trail form. This I can do -- form-based triggers, and all that. Problem is, I'd need to write triggers for every form extant, and...

... I also need to know if any* (or all) of those tables were modified elsewhere, by whom, and what changed. Whether by a user via an Oracle apps form or, say, a programmer playing with SQL. Now I'm into database triggers, right?

But if I write individual db triggers for each table, I see no way of tying the changes to, say, three tables, back to an idividual transaction initiated by such-and-such a user at such-and-such a time, since the triggers on the individual tables will fire at slightly different times. And so on.

I really need a unique identifier for each table modification that I can somehow use to link each table mod back to a particular transaction.

Has anyone any really terrific hints?

(I hope my explanation was clear enough -- to really explain the situation would require a much* longer posting...) Received on Wed Jan 17 1996 - 00:00:00 CET