within a trigger, there is a couple of functions you can use you can use to determine if a column has changed:

IF (UPDATE(columnname) ) returns true or false, if you are testing a single column, so you could do something like this:

CREATE TRIGGER TR_WHATEVER

ON WHATEVER

FOR INSERT,UPDATE

AS

IF (UPDATE(DESCRIP) )

BEGIN

INSERT INTO AUDIT(WHATEVERID,NEWVAL,OLDVAL,UPDATEDDT)

SELECT INSERTED.WHATEVERID,

INSERTED.DESCRIP AS NEWVAL,

DELETED.DESCRIP AS OLDVAL,

GETDATE() AS UPDATEDDT

FROM INSERTED

INNER JOIN DELETED

ON INSERTED.WHATEVERID=DELETED.WHATEVERID

END

the other function, COLUMNS_UPDATED, uses a bitmask, and references columns by their ordinal position...NOT by name, to determine whether the columns have had changes:

/*Check whether columns 2 thru 8 have been updated.

for example ,If any or all

columns 2, 3 or 4 have been changed, create an audit record. The

bitmask is: power(2,(2-1))+power(2,(3-1))+power(2,(4-1)) = 14. To test

whether all columns 2, 3, and 4 are updated, use = 14 instead of > 0

(below).

this one specifically is for 32 thru 8 is:

select power(2,(3-1))

+ power(2,(4-1))

+ power(2,(5-1))

+ power(2,(6-1))

+ power(2,(7-1))

+ power(2,(8-1)) = 252*/

IF (substring(COLUMNS_UPDATED(),1,1) & 252 )>0

--do stuff