Path: news.easynews.com!easynews!feedwest.aleron.net!aleron.net!sfo2-feed1.news.algx.net!allegiance!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: "Sybrand Bakker" Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server Subject: Re: How to monitor schema changes Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 00:05:19 +0200 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Reply-To: "Sybrand Bakker" References: <43lvfuo2shp4rhj2p25nbn2cq38th1m21c@4ax.com> X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 39 Xref: easynews comp.databases.oracle.server:149825 X-Received-Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 22:02:47 MST (news.easynews.com) "Rick Denoire" <100.17706@germanynet.de> wrote in message news:43lvfuo2shp4rhj2p25nbn2cq38th1m21c@4ax.com... > Hello > > Users complain to the DB administrator (me) when the DB developer has > changed the DB schema so that the SQL queries don't work anymore. > > Is there a way to monitor changes in the DB schema? I mean when tables > or views are renamed, columns are deleted, etc. > > I thought that doing an export with the option rows=no and comparing > this output (which contains all ddl commands) with further similar > exports should reveal any changes. > > In general, what is the best practice in order to avoid this kind of > problems caused by changes in the DB schema? (Supposing that such > changes are absolutely necessary). > > Thanks > Rick 1 check the last_ddl_time in dba|all|user_objects 2 The best practice is a not to allow untested 'service packs'/'upgrades' or 'patches' b) implement some form of source control like Visual Source Safe. Hth -- Sybrand Bakker Senior Oracle DBA to reply remove '-verwijderdit' from my e-mail address