Keep a shadow copy of a table while retaining records removed from the original - sql

Question

This is probably laughably easy for an SQL expert, but SQL (although I can use it) is not really my thing.
I've got a table in a DB. (Let's call it COMPUTERS)
About 10.000 rows. 25 columns. 1 unique key: Column ASSETS.
Occasionally an external program will delete 1 or more of the rows, but isn't supposed to do that, because we still need to know some info from those rows before we can really delete the items.
We can't control the behavior of the external application so we came up with a different idea:
We want to create a second identical table (COMPUTERS_BACKUP) and initially fill this with a one-on-one copy of COMPUTERS.
After that, once a day copy new records from COMPUTERS to COMPUTERS_BACKUP and update those records in COMPUTERS_BACKUP where the original in COMPUTERS has changed (ASSETS column will never change).
That way we keep the last state of a record deleted from COMPUTERS.
Can someone supply the code for a stored procedure that can be scheduled to run once a day? I can probably figure this out myself, but it would take me several hours or so and I'm very pressed for time.

Answer 1

just create a trigger for insert computers table
CREATE TRIGGER newComputer
ON [Computers]
AFTER INSERT
Begin
INSERT INTO COMPUTERS_BACKUP
SELECT * FROM Inserted
End
It'll work when you insert new computer to computers table and it'll also insert the record to bakcup table
When you update computers you could change computers backup too with update trigger
CREATE TRIGGER newComputer
ON [Computers]
AFTER UPDATE
Begin
//can access before updating the record through SELECT * FROM Deleted
//can access after updating the record through SELECT * FROM Inserted
UPDATE Computers_BACKUP SET
(attributes) = inserted.(attribute)
WHERE id = inserted.id
End
At the end I guess you don't want to delete the backup when original record is deleted from computers table. You can chech more examples from msdn using triggers.
When a record removed from computers table
CREATE TRIGGER computerDeleted ON [Computers] AFTER DELETE
Begin
INSERT INTO Computers_BACKUP
SELECT * FROM Deleted
End

Answer 2

Besides creating triggers, you may look into enabling Change Data Capture, which is available in SQL Server Enterprise Edition. It may be an overshot, but it should be mentioned and you may find it useful for other tables and objects.

Answer 3

IMHO a possible solution, if you never delete records (only update) from that table in your application, can be to introduce an INSTEAD OF DELETE trigger
CREATE TRIGGER tg_computers_delete ON computers
INSTEAD OF DELETE AS
DELETE computers WHERE 1=2;
It will prevent the deletion of the records.
Here is SQLFiddle demo.

Answer 4

A trigger for Before Delete event can help you to guard this table:
CREATE TRIGGER backup_row_before_delete ON COMPUTERS_Table FOR Delete
as
INSERT INTO Computers_Backup
SELECT deleted.* from deleted
You can change deleted.* for deleted.col1, deleted.col2 if you want to keep certain columns only.

Answer 5

will delete 1 or more of the rows, but isn't supposed to do that
Then you have permission and integrity issues.
You can most certainly use a trigger to record deletions (and updates of course) but I would not recommend you use it purely to keep a copy of stuff you didn't want deleted in the first place!
Remove delete permissions if you have to or beef up your data integrity if you can. Without your schema it's hard to tell exactly how though.
Finally, use your (INSTEAD OF) trigger to check whatever conditions you need to prevent the delete when appropriate.