Grouper Developers Forum

[Chris Hyzer <>]

Hey,

 

For point in time auditing, I think we need create_time and modify_time columns on all tables.

 

Some tables already have one or both of these, but they are number columns for number of millis since 1970.

 

Should we take this opportunity to use database timestamp type columns instead?  These are what I use in grouper_loader_log, and the group and stem last_membership_change col.

 

The advantage of going with the DB timestamp type, is that when you query data, you can use SQL to convert strings to timestamps for your DB, e.g. for oracle: select * from grouper_groups where create_time < to_timestamp('10-Sep-02 14:10:10.123000', 'DD-Mon-RR HH24:MI:SS.FF')

 

If people are ok with starting to use millis, we can:

 

1.       Assume if you want your old data for create_time and modify_time for the tables which support it, you can export to XML, upgrade DDL, and import

2.       I will give an option in the grouper.properties where you can delay the delete of the old cols, so you can keep the data around for a while if you like

 

I cant think of an easy DB independent way to convert from an number of millis since 1970 to a timestamp col…  but it also seems like the above strategies are sufficient

 

Thanks!

Chris

 

Ps. When I google “oracle millis since 1970”, grouper is the 3^rd result, so I don’t think the current strategy is too common of an approach…