Date of Last table update

Is there a way to query a particular table in a database and
return the date that the database was last updated?

Regards,



Fred

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:21:00 -0500, Fred Atkinson wrote:
> Is there a way to query a particular table in a database and
> return the date that the database was last updated?

Kind of... Under most circumstances, MySQL can auto-update the first
timestamp in a table as a "last changed" on the row, so you have all of
those sorted DESCending and LIMIT 1 out of it. I don't know of an
automagic function to do that across a whole database, though.

--
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly
thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely
give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord

> Is there a way to query a particular table in a database and
>return the date that the database was last updated?

There is a way to query a particular table in a database and return
the date/time that the *TABLE* was last updated.

Query: SHOW TABLE STATUS LIKE 'tablename';
Look at the Update_time field returned.

To get the database last update time, for reasonable definitions
of what that means, I suppose you could get the update time of all
the tables and take the latest one. Unless, of course, someone
deleted a table recently, which this test wouldn't show.
Also it wouldn't show modified views, triggers, etc.

Another approach is:

SELECT max(UPDATE_TIME) from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_SCHEMA = '$databasename';

Which has the same weakness regarding deleted tables and things that
aren't tables.