Want to show latest updated/modified records in a tables for an admin tool dashboard.. without storing modify dates..possible?

I thought maybe there is MySQL command to pull up the last X records that were most recently modified. I know I could just put an extra field in that stores whenever a record is updated.. but I am trying to avoid that route if possible.

Any pointers? I just want to create a dynamic dashboard that allows the clien开发者_StackOverflow中文版t to quickly work with the most recently worked on records..

Ex: "most recent users", "most recent projects", "most recent companies".. etc.

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Rather than storing data in the database, you could easily use session or cookie storage.

Create a stack of most recent references with a fixed size and manipulate this when a record is worked on. Your dashboard can then use this stack to display the records.

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Why are you trying to avoid storing it in the DB? too much extra data? or too much work? Did you know mysql can auto update the last-mod column?

ALTER TABLE mytable
ADD lastmodified TIMESTAMP 
    DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP 
    ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;