# CakePHP 4 Audit Trail Using AuditStash Plugin

> This plugin adds an "audit trail" to any of your Table classes in your application, allowing the web applications to record the creation, change, or deletion of any table's entities. In theory, it will store the old data before replacing it with the new data or content.

- URL: https://www.codethepixel.com/cakephp-4-audit-trail-using-auditstash-plugin
- Author: Asyraf Wahi Anuar (https://www.codethepixel.com/author/asyraf-wahi-anuar)
- Published: 2021-12-04
- Updated: 2021-12-13
- Category: CakePHP
- Tested with: CakePHP 4.x
- Tags: CakePHP, Plugin, Audit, AuditLog, Audit Trail, AuditStash
- Reading time: 3 min

This plugin adds an "audit trail" to any of your Table classes in your application, allowing the web applications to record the creation, change, or deletion of any table's entities. In theory, it will store the old data before replacing it with the new data or content. The audit log allows the web application to offer systematic tracking of modifications made to specific data. This is extremely beneficial for any online application that requires tracking of content and data.

Repository: [https://github.com/lorenzo/audit-stash](https://github.com/lorenzo/audit-stash)

## Installation

You can install this plugin into your CakePHP application using composer and executing the following lines at the root of your application.

```bash
$ composer require lorenzo/audit-stash
```

Load the plugin using the following command:

```bash
$ bin/cake plugin load AuditStash
```

## Configuration

In .../config/app.php file add the following configuration:

`config/app.php`

```php
'AuditStash' => [
    'persister' => 'AuditStash\Persister\TablePersister'
]
```

## Migration

Create Auditstash table using migrations:

```bash
$ bin/cake migrations migrate -p AuditStash -t 20171018185609
```

Bake the auditlogs table:

```bash
$ bin/cake bake model AuditLogs
```

## Enable Audit Log

Enabling the Audit Log in any of your table classes is as simple as adding a behaviour in the initialize() function:

```php
class ArticlesTable extends Table
{
    public function initialize(array $config = [])
    {
        ...
        $this->addBehavior('AuditStash.AuditLog');
    }
}
```

## Configuring The Behavior

The AuditLog behaviour can be configured to ignore certain fields. By default it ignores the created and modified fields:

```php
class ArticlesTable extends Table
{
    public function initialize(array $config = [])
    {
        ...
        $this->addBehavior('AuditStash.AuditLog', [
            'blacklist' => ['created', 'modified', 'another_field_name']
        ]);
    }
}
```

You also can define a whitelist. This means that only the fields listed in that array will be tracked by the behaviour:

```php
public function initialize(array $config = [])
{
    ...
    $this->addBehavior('AuditStash.AuditLog', [
        'whitelist' => ['title', 'description', 'author_id']
    ]);
}
```

That's all. Happy coding :)