can I know when another app modifies a table? | SQL Server Performance Forums

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can I know when another app modifies a table?

Hi, I have a C# app that reads appointment data (using OleDbConnection to access .dbf tables) that another app writes to. I don’t own the other app, so I can’t create triggers or anything like that. Is there a way for my app to know when a table has been modified? If not, how do I get my app to periodically re-query (maybe every 15 seconds)? Thanks much,
bwp
If there is no way that you can add triggers or get them to enter a "last modified" date in the database/tables then you can’t see when the data was last modified. How to get your app to requery depends on your app. You could put code in a loop that checks if new data has arrived or you could create a windows service that runs in the background and checks it.
How about using SQL Server scheduled jobs, using this C# application calling command line operation. Satya SKJ
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the db table (appt.dbf in this case) does have a lastmodified field, but I still hate the thought of running a query on that big table so often. Is there something like a fileopen event message from the system that I can trap? Also, how to I set up a loop in my .NET app to keep checking without locking up the system? thx
If you cannot setup a scheduled job in SQL-Server then I suggest that you buld a windows service that can run on some server to check that for you. If you just care about new inserts/deletes then you could do "count() and max()" on the table and that wont be that bad in a performance perspective. If you however need to check for updates as well then I suggest you to do sum(len(yourTextfield)) and check that value. AIf you need more "bulletproof" solution, then I recommend you to recheck the possibilites of using triggers. I know that SQL-Server 2005 will provide a procedure to check if the table data has been modified, but that wont solve your problems today.
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