Generating a log file from oracle db

Question

I want to generate a log file in which i want to dump some useful messages, when anyone does a dml operation on a table, and also, i want to have a switch like YES or NO (may be an environment variable,,) if i switch it to YES the log file should get generated, if NO then, no log file will be generated..
can anyone help, how can you do this task ?
thanks a lot in advance..
srini

Answer 1

You can use a Trigger and UTL_FILE to write to a file (on the server).
Example:
create or replace trigger test_file
  after insert or delete or update on test_case 
  for each row
declare
v_logfile utl_file.file_type;
begin
  v_logfile := utl_file.fopen('\myfiles','test_file.log','a');
  if inserting then
     utl_file.put_line(v_logfile,'Inserting to table');
  elsif deleting then
     utl_file.put_line(v_logfile,'Deleting to table');
  else
     utl_file.put_line(v_logfile,'Updating to table');
  end if;
  utl_file.fclose(v_logfile);
end test_file;
I want to generate a log file in which i want to dump some useful messages, when anyone does a dml operation on a table, and also, i want to have a switch like YES or NO (may be an environment variable,,) if i switch it to YES the log file should get generated, if NO then, no log file will be generated..
can anyone help, how can you do this task ?
thanks a lot in advance..
srini