Method and mechanism for identifying transaction on a row of data

• US 20060212492A1
• Filed: 05/17/2006
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Ganesh, Amit, Klein, Jonathan, Jacobs, Kenneth R., Johnson, Archna Kalra, Raja, Vivekanandhan
• Granted Patent: US 7,937,368 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2477 Temporal data queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A method and mechanism for identifying one or more transactions that have modified or created an object in a database system. Also disclosed is a method and mechanism to compensate for the effects of a transaction in a database system is disclosed. The disclosed approach can be applied to perform auditing for changes and/or transactions in a database system and for identifying the scope of changes and data accesses made by a transaction in the system.

Claims

1. A method to identify changes made by a committed transaction in a database system, comprising:

identifying a committed transaction in a database system after the transaction is committed; and

after the act of identifying the committed transaction, identifying one or more changes made by the committed transaction in the database system based on the identified committed transaction;

wherein the act of identifying the one or more changes comprises accessing a log record that is associated with the identified committed transaction.

2. The method of claim 1 in which a primary key is used to identify the committed transaction.

3. The method of claim 1 in which the log record is accessed one or more times to identify changes made by the committed transactions.

4. The method of claim 3 in which the log record comprises a list of transactions that access a given data item.

5. The method of claim 4 in which the list of transactions is associated with multiple rows of data.

6. The method of claim 4 in which the list of transactions is associated with a single row of data.

7. The method of claim 3 in which the log record comprises an undo record.

8. The method of claim 1 in which a list of transactions is compiled, each transaction on the list corresponding to a related data item.

9. The method of claim 8 in which the last N transactions are listed.

10. The method of claim 1 in which a dependency graph is constructed.

11. The method of claim 1 in which the dependency graph identifies dependent transactions for the committed transaction.

12. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having executable code to execute a process to identify changes made by a committed transaction in a database system, the process comprising the steps of:

identifying a committed transaction in a database system after the transaction is committed; and

after the act of identifying the committed transaction, identifying one or more changes made by the committed transaction in the database system;

wherein the act of identifying the one or more changes comprises accessing a log record that is associated with the identified committed transaction.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the process further comprises compiling a list of transactions that correspond to a related data item.

15. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the process further comprises identifying dependent transactions for the committed transaction.

13. A system to identify changes made by a committed transaction in a database system, comprising:

means for identifying a committed transaction in a database system after the transaction is committed; and

means for identifying one or more changes made by the committed transaction in the database system after the act of identifying the committed transaction;

wherein the means for identifying the one or more changes is configured to access a log record that is associated with the identified committed transaction.

16. The system of claim 13, further comprises means for compiling a list of transactions that correspond to a related data item.

17. The system of claim 13, further comprises means for identifying dependent transactions for the committed transaction.