Updating a record while displaying all changes to it.

[brad_strickland]

I don't know if I'm wording this right.
I have a textarea that is entered into a database. When this is edited, I want to store and display a list of all the changes that have been made to it.
Like a conversation in a forum. The reason for this is that I want past changes to be locked from editing.

Would a new database table storing only this text fields data need to be created? Maybe have column for the work request number and a second column for the text entered? But then wouldn't I need an third identifier column so the changes can be displayed in the right order?

Looking for sage like wisdom

Thanks

Brad_Strickland

[laserlight]

brad_strickland wrote:

But then wouldn't I need an third identifier column so the changes can be displayed in the right order?

A timestamp, perhaps?

If you are concerned about space, one thing you could look into is the use of an algorithm to store the differences between the original and modified texts, along with possible use of compression.