Is there an automatic modification time stamp type for Oracle columns?

Question

Is there a way to create a timestamp column in Oracle that automatically stores a timestamp of when the record has changed ?

Answer 1

Tables I've modelled always include:

• CREATED_USER, VARCHAR2
• CREATED_DATE, DATE
• UPDATED_USER, VARCHAR2
• UPDATED_DATE, DATE

...columns. Why implement a trigger when you can set the value at the same time as the INSERT/UPDATE?

INSERT INTO TABLE (...CREATED_DATE, UPDATED_DATE) VALUES (...,SYSDATE, SYSDATE);

UPDATE TABLE
   SET ...,
       UPDATED_DATE = SYSDATE