change in functionality request...

pkmccarthy

when i point sql prompt at a large database (peoplesoft FMS has 40,000 tables, peoplesoft HCM has 18,000 tables and peoplesoft CRM has 8,000 tables) -- the caching either takes forever or never finishes...

1)
When you look at how Speed IDE worked (rename from msSQLXpress app) AND at how Aqua Fold's Aqua Data work, they do NOT need to do this caching --

i can point Aqua Data at my peoplesoft databases and only when i start to type an object name then invoke the intelli-sense, it will run against the objects list with what i have typed - its very fast -- of course in these two apps i had to turn off the feature to auto-invoke intellisense when working on the large databases but it made the tools very usefull....

2)
question - i write a sql statement as follows
select * from SomeTable X where X.

after i type the X. and invoke the intelisense it wants to show me columns from other tables, why? at this point i only want the columns from the table represented by X...

pkmccarthy

no response from red-gate?

Eddie D

Thank you for your post into the forum and sorry for the delay in replying to you.

I cannot comment on the competitor products you highlighted in your post due to the fact that I have never installed and used them.

As for your question - "i write a sql statement as follows
select * from SomeTable X where X.

after i type the X. and invoke the intelisense it wants to show me columns from other tables, why? at this point i only want the columns from the table represented by X..."

I am unable to reproduce this problem. On each occasion I get the correct response from SQL Prompt.

pkmccarthy

1) with regard to the competitor product (aqua data) please take a minute to download the trial and at least see what i am talking about -- even without looking at the competitor i am requesting the following featureset:

the ability to not have it cache my db schema to my hard-drive; the ability to have it not auto-invoke intellisense (only when i press the key combo should it invoke - this is a common feature in most intellisense installs) - lastly, when i invoke the intellisense it uses only the data at hand to give me the results...

example - i type the following:
SELECT * FROM PS_RD_

with the cursor placed right after the second underscore, i press the key combo to invoke intellisense, at this point it queries the SYSOBJECTS table (or whatever your code does) and only brings back objects starting with "PS_RD_" -- this appears very fast in the competitors apps and should be very fast since the name column of sysobjects is indexed....

2) with regard to the X. example in my previous post - the intellisense window shows the column name AND the table name it comes from when i invoke intellisense -- i will go back and get a screen shot of the issue....


thanks for your time on this request - i love the product but it has issues with databases that have objects in the several thousands....

pkmccarthy

let me also put the cache issue another way...

i have peoplesoft fms with 40k tables and 30k views... it has yet to cache the db correctly and renders the intellisense partially useless... maybe i should consider this an application bug instead?

thanks again....

Brian Donahue

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. I think what we're trying to say is that looking at competitors' products is not in the scope of product support (ie we that moderate this forum!) I will endeavor to get this information to Prompt's product manager.

I do have one comment, though. You can stop the automatic presentation of the candidate list in SQL Prompt's options. By default, you can cause it only to appear when you invoke it with CTRL-SPACE. Filtering may be considered for the future. I seem to recall version 2 working this way, unless I'm mistaken.

Prompt, like a lot of Red Gate products, is based on a multi-purpose schema engine, which probably introduces some limitations which will be addressed by enhancing the engine in future (hopefully in a way that doesn't negatively impact other products!).

The engine works by reading the system tables (sysobjects, syscomments, etc) and creating an on-disk representation of the schema in its' cache. This will cause the first examination of the db to take some time, but subsequent access should be faster than having to read the schema over and over again.

Prompt is a relatively young product for us and I think you can look forward to many improvements in the very near future. Thanks again for taking the time to write us about your wishes for Prompt.

pkmccarthy

Brian, thanks for the response - as with most sql tools products i use, they always seem to have a hard time with large databases --

i look forward to the maturing of this product to the level of the other tools i have used in the past... (i would worry though, if the cache is read completely into memory upon connecting to that db; in my case, i may run out of memory before even getting the benefits of localized cached version of my db schema...)

thanks again....

pkmccarthy

i finally remembered to give you a screen shot of the issue i am having... however, it doesnt appear i can post it here - how do i get you the screen shot showing its bringing back more column lists than the table i am prompting for?