How to get all the transaction logs (insert update delete) for a specific table in SQL Server 2008

Question

I want to get all the transactions applied on a specific table in SQL Server 2008.

I found the last time a table was updated using this script:

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS DatabaseName, last_user_update,*
FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats
WHERE database_id = DB_ID( 'DBName')
AND OBJECT_ID=OBJECT_ID('tableName')

I want to know all the transactions (Inserts, Updates, Deletes) for that table, and their datetime, and the query applied.

What is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

The only way to do this in a reasonable amount of time is to use a third party tool(as Martin said in first comment) such as ApexSQL Log that can read transaction log and get the information you need.

Note that in order for this to work your database has to be in a full recovery mode because that’s when SQL Server logs full transaction details that can be reconstructed later.

Another option is to investigate how to use undocumented fn_dblog function but this will take you a lot more time and you won’t be able to read detached logs or transaction log backups.

Answer 2

creating a trigger which will create a new table Emp_audit and add new tuples to it whenever any change is made to table employee

create trigger my_trigger on Employees

AFTER INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
AS
DECLARE @What varchar(30);
DECLARE @Who varchar(30);
DECLARE @for int;
DECLARE @At time;
DECLARE @COUNTI int;
DECLARE @COUNTD int;
select @COUNTI = COUNT(*) from inserted;
select @COUNTD = COUNT(*) from deleted;
set @Who = SYSTEM_USER;
set @At = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;

if( @COUNTD = 0 and @COUNTI = 1)
    begin
    set @What = 'insert';
    select @for = EmployeeID from inserted i;
    end
else 
    begin
    if( @COUNTD = 1 and @COUNTI = 0)
        begin 
        set @What = 'delete';
        select @for = EmployeeID from deleted i;
        end
    else  
        begin
        set @What = 'update';
        select @for = EmployeeID from inserted i;
        end
    end

     INSERT INTO EMP_Audit Values (@What, @Who, @for, @At);

Answer 3

You would be much better off setting up auditing for this need rather than trying to extract this information retrospectively from the transaction log.

If you are on Enterprise Edition you could use the built in SQL Server Audit functionality, otherwise it should be relative straight forward to log the desired information via triggers.