Inner join across multiple access db's - asp.net

I am re-designing an application for a ASP.NET CMS that I really don't like. I have made som improvements in performance only to discover that not only does this CMS use MS SQL but some users "simply" use MS Access database.
The problem is that I have some tables which I inner join, that with the MS Access version are in two different files. I am not allowed to simply move the tables to the other mdb file.
I am now trying to figure out a good way to "inner join" across multiple access db files?
It would really be a pity if I have fetch all the data and the do it programmatically!
Thanks

You don't need linked tables at all. There are two approaches to using data from different MDBs that can be used without a linked table. The first is to use "IN 'c:\MyDBs\Access.mdb'" in the FROM clause of your SQL. One of your saved queries would be like:
SELECT MyTable.*
FROM MyTable IN 'c:\MyDBs\Access.mdb'
and the other saved query would be:
SELECT OtherTable.*
FROM OtherTable IN 'c:\MyDBs\Other.mdb'
You could then save those queries, and then use the saved queries to join the two tables.
Alternatively, you can manage it all in a single SQL statement by specifying the path to the source MDB for each table in the FROM clause thus:
SELECT MyTable.ID, OtherTable.OtherField
FROM [c:\MyDBs\Access.mdb].MyTable
INNER JOIN [c:\MyDBs\Other.mdb].OtherTable ON MyTable.ID = OtherTable.ID
Keep one thing in mind, though:
The Jet query optimizer won't necessarily be able to use the indexes from these tables for the join (whether it will use them for criteria on individual fields is another question), so this could be extremely slow (in my tests, it's not, but I'm not using big datasets to test). But that performance issue applies to linked tables, too.

If you have access to the MDBs, and are able to change them, you might consider using Linked Tables. Access provides the ability to link to external data (in other MDBs, in Excel files, even in SQL Server or Oracle), and then you can perform your joins against the links.
I'd strongly encourage performance testing such an option. If it's feasible to migrate users of the Access databases to another system (even SQL Express), that would also be preferable -- last I checked, there are no 64-bit JET drivers for ODBC anymore, so if the app is ever hosted in a 64-bit environment, these users will be hosed.

Inside one access DB you can create "linked tables" that point to the other DB. You should (I think) be able to query the tables as if they both existed in the same DB.
It does mean you have to change one of the DBs to create the virtual table, but at least you're not actually moving the data, just making a pointer to it

Within Access, you can add remote tables through the "Linked Table Manager". You could add the links to one Access file or the other, or you could create a new Access file that references the tables in both files. After this is done, the inner-join queries are no different than doing them in a single database.

Related

Progress-OpenEdge query to show Column Relations of the table

I want a query to get the column relation or reference of column for the table or for all the databases.
Like in MySQL, we have a query
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE WHERE
TABLE_SCHEMA = 'database_name';
So, What is the query for Progress OpenEdge to get column relation.
Also where are procedure, functions and views stored in ProgressDB?
Query to view database name list?
To find relationships, or views, or stored procedures you must query the meta-schema. Stefan's link documents SYSTABLES, SYSCOLUMNS, SYSINDEXES, SYSPROCEDURES, and SYSVIEWS. These are the tables that define what you have asked for.
https://docs.progress.com/bundle/openedge-sql-reference-117/page/OpenEdge-SQL-System-Catalog-Tables.html
The Progress database does not explicitly store relationships. They are implied, by convention, when there are common field names between tables but this does not create any special relationship in the engine. You can parse the tables above and make some guesses but, ultimately, you probably need to refer to the documentation for the application that you are working with.
Most Progress databases were created to be used by Progress 4gl applications. SQL came later and is mostly used to support 3rd party reporting tools. As a result there are two personas - the 4gl and sql. They have have many common capabilities but there are some things that they do not share. Stored procedures are one such feature. You can create them on the sql side but the 4gl side of things does not know about them and and will not use them to enforce constraints or for any other purpose. Since, as I mentioned, most Progress databases are created to support a 4gl application, it is very unusual to have any sql stored procedures.
(To make matters even more complicated there is some old sql-89 syntax embedded within the 4gl engine. But this very old syntax is really just token sql support and is not available to non-4gl programs.)

sql server generate all select script (asp.net)

I'm in the process of developing an application that allows users to select tables and columns, and choose join methods ( like inner, outer..) as well as aggregate functions sql (sum, avg..etc) for the purpose of generating reports from those selections.
What I did is append strings to build a request to an sql server. I think i'm wrong doing it this way because users can choose a lot of columns and that throws unexpected exceptions. Are there some ideas on a better way to go about this (not source code)?
As you have asked, what is best way to manage query ( can contain sum,avg etc..) generated on server side and made those to execute on SQL server, I am writing best possible suggestion for this. Consider that and follow your path.
If you have adhoc queries generated in server side, then definitely you can write those into SQL group of statements known as Stored Procedure . And this has following advantages.
More manageable, if same set of SQL blocks need in multiple places, then use this single procedure everywhere.
Secure - you don't have to set permission( like select) for multiple tables (joining tables), instead just have execute permission for procedure.
Good Performance - Execution Plan Caching and Reuse
Source - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/38178
Stored proc - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190782.aspx
If you are new to stored procedure and want to know, how to use that in asp.net, here is tutorial for this - http://www.dbtutorials.com/advanced/using-stored-procedures-cs/

Is it possible to create a database/table/view alias?

Let's say there is a database owned by someone else called theirdb with a very slow view named slowview. I have an app that queries this view regularly, but, because it takes too long, I want to materialize it to a table within a database that I own (mydb.materializedview).
Is there a way in Teradata to create an alias database object so that I can go like select * from theirdb.slowview, but actually be selecting from mydb.materializedview?
I need to do some rigorous testing against their view, but it's so slow that I hardly have time to test anything. The other option is to edit the code so that it reads from mydb.materializedview, but that is, unfortunately, not an option in this particular case.
Teradata does not allow for you to create aliases or symbolic links between objects.
If the object is fully qualified by database name and view name in the application your options are a little more restricted. You have have to create a backup of their view definition and them place your materialized table in the same database. This would obviously be best done during a planned application outage.
If the object is not fully qualified by database name and view name in the application and relies on a default database setting or application variable you have a little more flexibility. If all the work is done at a view level you can duplicate the environment in another database where you plan to have a materialized version of their slowview. Then by changing the users default database or application variable you can point it at the duplicate environment to complete your testing.
Additionally, you can try to cover (partially or fully) the query that makes up the slowview by using a join index. This allows you to leave the codebase as it is in the application but for queries that can be satisfied by the join index the optimizer will use the join index. Keep in mind that a join index does incur a cost as it is in essence a materialized version of the SQL which was used to construct it. This means additional IO and change management issues have to be taken in to account.
Lastly, you could try to create additional secondary or hash indexes on the objects within the slowview to improve it's performance.

SQL. Re: inner joins & foreign keys

Good day.
I have a basic question on SQL and table structure.
What we have now: 17 tables. These tables include 1 admin table. The other 13 tables are all branched off 3 "main" tables: customers, CareWorkers, Staff.
If I'm wanting to adhere to ACID ideology, I want to then create tables that each houses unique information.
My question is, and what I'm trying to wrap my head around, when I create each of these "nested-deeper" (not sure what to call it) tables, I simply do an inner join statement to grab the foreign key on my ASP.NET app correct?
First, inner join is how you get your tables "back together", and #SpectralGhost's example is how you do it. But you might want to consider doing it in the database rather than in your ASP code. The way you do that is with views. If you create a view (the syntax is CREATE VIEW and there are plenty of examples out there) then you can make the database schema as complex as you need to without making it hard to use in your ASP application. You can even make views updatable (you define an "INSTEAD OF" trigger, again, many examples if you search).
But you probably don't want to update a view, or a table, directly from your ASP code. You probably want to define STORED PROCEDUREs that update your data, and call those from your ASP code. This allows you to restrict access to your tables and views to read only and force any writes to come through a stored procedure you can control better. This prevents SQL INJECTION, making your ASP application much more secure. If the service account the application pool you ASP page runs under can pass raw queries to the database then any compromise can do tremendous damage to your database. If all it can do is execute a stored procedure where the parameters can be changed but not the functionality, they can only put some junk values in, or maybe not even that if you range check well.
The last bit of advice is that you are not preserving "ACID", you are preserving "NORMALIZED". It's definitely a tough concept to wrap your head around, here's a resource that helped me out a great deal when I was starting out. http://www.marcrettig.com/data-normalization-poster/ I still have a copy on my wall. You shouldn't obsess over normalization, but you should definitely keep it in mind and stick to it when you reasonably can. Again, there are numerous resources a search will get you, but the basic benefit is a normalized database is much more resistant to consistency problems, and is more storage efficient. And since disk IO is slow, storage efficient is usually query efficient too.
They are related tables. You should have at least one table with a primary key and often several that related back to that table from that table's foreign key.
TableOne
TableOneID
TableTwo
TableTwoID
TableOneID
TableTwo relates to TableOne via TableOneID. An inner join would give you where there are records in both tables based on your join. Example:
SELECT *
FROM TableOne t1
INNER JOIN TableTwo t2 ON t1.TableOneID=t2.TableOneID
Specifically how to do this in your application depends on your design. If you are using an ORM, then actual SQL is not terribly important. If you are using stored procedures, then it is.

Multiple files for a single SQLite database

Afaik, SQLite stores a single database in a single file. Since this would decrease the performance when working with large databases, is it possible to explicitly tell SQLite not to store the whole DB in a single file and store different tables in different files instead?
I found out, that it is possible.
Use:
sqlite3.exe MainDB.db
ATTACH DATABASE 'SomeTableFile.db' AS stf;
Access the table from the other database file:
SELECT * FROM stf.SomeTable;
You can even join over several files:
SELECT *
FROM MainTable mt
JOIN stf.SomeTable st
ON (mt.id = st.mt_id);
https://www.sqlite.org/lang_attach.html
tameera said there is a limit of 62 attached databases but I never hit that limit so I can't confirm that.
The big advantage besides some special cases is that you limit the fragmentation in the database files and you can use the VACUUM command separately on each table!
If you don't need a join between these tables you can manually split the DB and say which tables are in which DB (=file).
I don't think that it's possible to let SQLite split your DB in multiple files, because you connect to a DB by telling the filename.
SQLite database files can grow quite large without any performance penalties.
The things that might degrade performance are:
file-locking contention
table size (if using indexes and issuing write queries)
Also, by default, SQLite limits the number of attached databases to 10.
Anyway, try partition your tables. You'll see that SQLite can grow enormously this way.

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