Check for changes to an SQL Server table?

Question

How can I monitor an SQL Server database for changes to a table without using triggers or modifying the structure of the database in any way? My preferred programming enviro

Answer 1

Unfortunately CHECKSUM does not always work properly to detect changes.

It is only a primitive checksum and no cyclic redundancy check (CRC) calculation.

Therefore you can't use it to detect all changes, e. g. symmetrical changes result in the same CHECKSUM!

E. g. the solution with CHECKSUM_AGG(BINARY_CHECKSUM(*)) will always deliver 0 for all 3 tables with different content:

SELECT CHECKSUM_AGG(BINARY_CHECKSUM(*)) FROM 
(
  SELECT 1 as numA, 1 as numB
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 1 as numA, 1 as numB
)  q
-- delivers 0!


SELECT CHECKSUM_AGG(BINARY_CHECKSUM(*)) FROM 
(
  SELECT 1 as numA, 2 as numB
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 1 as numA, 2 as numB
)  q
-- delivers 0!

SELECT CHECKSUM_AGG(BINARY_CHECKSUM(*)) FROM 
(
  SELECT 0 as numA, 0 as numB
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 0 as numA, 0 as numB
)  q
-- delivers 0!