How can I tell when a MySQL table was last updated?

Question

In the footer of my page, I would like to add something like "last updated the xx/xx/200x" with this date being the last time a certain MySQL table has been updated.

What is the best way to do that? Is there a function to retrieve the last updated date? Should I access the database every time I need this value?

Answer 1

In MySQL's latest version you can use the information_schema database if another table is already updated like this:

SELECT UPDATE_TIME

FROM   information_schema.tables

WHERE  TABLE_SCHEMA = 'dbname'

   AND TABLE_NAME = 'tabname'

This will help you to open a connection to the database.

The other option is to "touch" a particular file whenever the MySQL table is updated, you'll find it on database updates:

Open your timestamp file in O_RDRW mode

close it again

0 or alternatively

To change the file timestamp, you can use touch() which is PHP equivalent of the utimes() function, and you will find it on On-page display:

use stat() to read back the file modification time.

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