Patent ID: 7117197
Filing Date: 2006-10-03
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method for selectively auditing accesses to a relational database system comprising: receiving a query from a client at a database server that process queries for the relational database system, wherein the relational database system comprises a plurality of relational tables, wherein each of the relational tables includes an auditing flag which indicates whether auditing is enabled for the relational table; determining if auditing enabled by checking the auditing flag; if so, automatically modifying the query prior to processing the query, so that processing the query causes an auditing record to be created and recorded only for selected rows in relational tables that are accessed by the query and satisfy an auditing condition, wherein the auditing condition specifies selecting a row based on the value of a field in the row in the relational database; processing the query at the database server to produce a query result; conditionally creating the audit record only for rows in relational tables that are actually accessed by the query and that satisfy the auditing condition; recording the audit record in an audit record store; and returning the query result to the client.