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From: cameron@kirk.nmg.bu.oz (Cameron Stevenson)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Time related records
Keywords: time,database
Message-ID: <1082@kirk.nmg.bu.oz>
Date: 28 Jun 90 23:07:51 GMT
Organization: Network Management Group, Bond University, Australia
Lines: 31

This may seem a trivial question for some, but here goes...

I'm trying to find an elegant way to store time related records with
our database (ORACLE). By this I don't mean, time in the sense of the
time lapsed eg. how many minutes, seconds, etc., but in relation to 
changes in information in columns over time. 

Perhaps an example will explain the problem better...
We are holding information within a table for a key register. Some of
the columns are the key number, the person the key is issued to, and
the issue date. Now supposing that person leaves, the key is handed in
and issued to a new person. Now the information within the table is
altered to reflect that change, but the problem... how can I store
the fact that at some stage person A was issued with that key.

I'm sure there are plenty of ways of doing this, but most that I can
think of involve copying the relevant rows from the 'current' table
to an 'historical' table, with subsequent increase in the amount of
data being stored, and fairly strict control on that copy/modify process
through the application front-end.

So, back to the original question, the answer to which may be staring me
in the face...

Is there an elegant way to store this time related information? Are there
any good textual references somebody could point me towards? Any help
would be appreciated.

Cameron Stephenson                         Telephone  +61 75 951220
Bond University
Gold Coast    Australia