CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.net-mvc-3sql-server-ce
Turkdogan Tasdelen
Turkdogan Tasdelen

Reputation: 898

Audit/Log in ASP.NET MVC3

We need to log specific action in MVC 3 project. A database table will store logs something like:

"User [SessionUserHere...] changed [Name][Lastname][OtherAttributesHere...] values of [ChangedEmployeeHere...]"

I need to learn which attributes of a model changed and which ones keep their original values. Is there any way to track which attributes of a Model changed?

In MVC3 doing Audit trail a database trigger is proposed; but we use Sql Server Compact for this project.

Thanks...

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1341

Answers (3)

Paul Tyng
Paul Tyng

Reputation: 7584

I created a library to do just this and provide some additional metadata. It relies on MVC ModelMetadata and DataAnnotations to provide a "readable version" of the diff for non technical users.

https://github.com/paultyng/ObjectDiff

Given objects like (no metadata obviously):

var before = new 
{ 
    Property1 = "", 
    MultilineText = "abc\ndef\nghi", 
    ChildObject = new { ChildProperty = 7 }, 
    List = new string[] { "a", "b" } 
};

var after = new 
{ 
    Property1 = (string)null, 
    MultilineText = "123\n456", 
    NotPreviouslyExisting = "abc", 
    ChildObject = new { ChildProperty = 6 }, 
    List = new string[] { "b", "c" } 
};

It would output something like:

ChildObject - ChildProperty: '6', was '7'
List - [2, added]: 'c', was not present
List - [removed]: No value present, was 'a'
MultilineText: 
-----
123
456
-----
was 
-----
abc
def
ghi
-----
NotPreviouslyExisting: 'abc', was not present

Upvotes: 0

Ray Hayes
Ray Hayes

Reputation: 15015

You could do the audit in code rather than the database. In the HttpPost handler, get the original value and compare the objects using an auditing function. I have a home brew implementation, but this does a similar thing Compare .NET Objects.

It means you can do the following:

var original = GetDatabaseRecord(xx);
var newRec = GetFormSubmission();  // However you do this

var auditor = new CompareObjects();

if ( auditor.Compare(original, newRec) )
{
    foreach ( var diff in auditor.Differences )
    {
        // work through the deltas
    }
}
else
{
    // Nothing changed!
}

My own version returns a structure of:

  • Name (such as "Issue.Priority")
  • Change (ChangedValue, OnlyLeft, OnlyRight)
  • Old Value
  • New Value

The link provided may suffice for you or act as a starting point.

Upvotes: 1

AyKarsi
AyKarsi

Reputation: 9695

Have you had look at the INotifyPropertyChanged interface?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms743695.aspx

Upvotes: 1

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