MDBitz Development Resources

In most instances you will be using a User Interface of one sort or another to execute Transact-SQL commands against your Sybase Database Servers. In rare occasions however I find that I execute commands through the dos prompt via the Interactive SQL Utility or iSQL as it is more commonly referred.

Opening a Connection

BCP and iSQL both use the same parameter flags when specifying the database server and user credentials for connecting to a server.

• Server Flag -S You can specify the Database Server you are accessing by use of the -S flag followed by the Server. (e.g. -S SYBABC )
• User Flag -U If you are not using credentials outlined in your .ini file then you can specify the User you would like to use for authentication using the -U flag followed by the user name. (e.g. -U guest)
• Password Flag -P If no password is supplied then a prompt will occur to input it. You can use the -P flag to specify the password to use to bypass the prompt. (e.g. -P test123)

Using these variables you would connect to the Sybase Database Server with the following command.

isql -S server -U userName -P password

Issuing Transact-SQL Commands

A successful connection will present you with the > carat letting you know you can now enter your T-SQL commands. To do so you simply type the command line by line and when finished type the GO command to issue the SQL.

> USE db2
> GO
> SELECT *
> FROM books b
> WHERE b.pub_date >= '09/01/2009'
> GO

Understanding the output from iSQL

iSQL will output the results of the command to standard output. However you have the option of formatting the output to your own preferences.

• Headers Flag -h to modify the number of lines between the column headers and the data rows use the -h flag followed by the number of desired lines.
• Column Seperator -s by default a space is used to separate the columns in a row you can use the -s flag to change this to your desired delimiter.
• Column Width -w by default the output is limited to 80 characters per line use the -w flag to modify this to the length you want.

Interactive SQL is a useful tool when you need to quickly execute commands against your database. For that reason alone it is worth knowing about the utility, but in most cases you will find yourself using other UI based applications to issue commands against your Sybase Server.

References

• Sybase Online Manual – Using the iSQL Utility

When performing database maintenance you will occasionally find the need to export data out of your database tables to an operating system for storage, or conversely import data to a table from a file. You may find yourself needing to do these tasks for data backup or for inserting data that comes from a 3rd party export. Sybase makes this process simple by the Bulk Copy Utility (BCP).

Basic BCP Usage

BCP as it’s name suggest is used for 1 purpose the bulk copy of data to and from Sybase Tables. To utilize the utility the basic command format is:

bcp DATABASE..TABLE out C:\DB\temp.txt

If you wanted to perform an import you simply switch the out keyword for in.

BCP Option Flags

In addition to the command there are a few options you may also find yourself using.

• Server Flag -S You can specify the Database Server you are accessing by use of the -S flag followed by the Server. (e.g. -S SYBABC )
• User Flag -U If you are not using credentials outlined in your .ini file then you can specify the User you would like to use for authentication using the -U flag followed by the user name. (e.g. -U guest)
• Password Flag -P If no password is supplied then a prompt will occur to input it. You can use the -P flag to specify the password to use to bypass the prompt. (e.g. -P test123)
• Native Format -n To export data in native format which is not readable by looking directly at the file you can use the -n flag. This mode will make it so you don’t have to specify the column format during export.
• Char Format -c To export all data in basic char format then you can use the -c flag. This mode will also make it so you don’t have to specify the column format during export.
• Tab Format -t The default format for delimiting data columns per row is the tab character to specify a different delimiter -t can be used followed by the new delimiter.
• Row Format -r If you want to have a different delimiter then the new line character in your export you can modify it by using the -r flag followed by the new delimiter.

Basic BCP Output Example

bcp DATABASE..TABLE out C:\DB\temp.txt -c -S server -U userName -P password

Basic BCP Input Example

bcp DATABASE..TABLE inC:\DB\temp.txt -c -S server -U userName -P password

The Bulk Copy Utility (BCP) is a very simple and versatile tool. If you find yourself doing a lot of database management you may want to familiarize yourself with it as it can save you a lot of time, effort, and headaches.

Resources

• Sybase Online Manual – BCP Utility Guide

Today I was running some tests on my T-SQL Procedures and noticed that for some reason my Select statement was performing in seconds compared to my Procedure which would take minutes to complete. After a few hours I stumbled upon my mistake I had used the date datatype in the procedure parameters when my database table was of type datetime, by switching the variable to a varchar(30) datatype the procedures performance had increased and functioned with the same IO count and time as the select statement.

Incorrect Procedure Statement

CREATE PROCEDURE P_RULE_MULTI_LOCATION
@startDate DATE,
@endDate DATE
AS
BEGIN
 
SELECT * FROM ACTIVITY_LOG WHERE ACTION_TS >= @startDate AND ACTION_TS < @endDate
 
END

Correct Procedure Statement

CREATE PROCEDURE P_RULE_MULTI_LOCATION
@startDate VARCHAR(30),
@endDate VARCHAR(30)
AS
BEGIN
 
SELECT * FROM ACTIVITY_LOG WHERE ACTION_TS >= @startDate AND ACTION_TS < @endDate
 
END

The simple above change enhances the queries performance where it can use both an index and its position when performing the select statement. While the date to datetime comparison does not allow for the index position to be used due to the conversion. It may not make the most sense but if you find your procedure functioning slower than your direct sql query you may want to check your datatypes to make sure that they are the same.

Database maintenance can be a full -time job when working within a large corporation. Cleanup or deletion of records can especially be time-consuming and error prone when dealing with large data tables with millions of records. Often developers will try to run a basic delete statement without knowing about batching or truncating the activity log. Below is a simple method for performing a batch delete.

Define you DELETE statement

The first step is to define your DELETE statement with the appropriate WHERE clause. If for example you want to delete all records before a set date then your query would look similar to:

DELETE FROM my_table WHERE action_ts < '06/01/2009'

Implementing the basic batch loop

To implement a basic loop we need to define some variables to keep track of a few variables. First we define @err to obtain the error id if an error occours, and @nCount to hold the total number of rows deleted.

DECLARE @err INT, @nCount INT
SELECT @nCount=0

Next we implement or while statement to execute or delete statement while more records are available to be deleted. In this example we will test if any rows exist matching or deletion statement.

WHILE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE action_ts < '06/01/2009')
BEGIN
    ... 
END

In our while loop we will delete our records in batches by use of the TOP command that limits how many records are effected. We will be using a batch size of 10000.

DELETE TOP 10000 FROM my_table WHERE action_ts < '06/01/2009'

After our delete query we want to check if any errors occurred and if so break out of our batch loop. This is done by obtaining the current error status and if an error occurred then breaking out of the loop by the break command.

SELECT @err=@@ERROR, @nCount=@nCount+@@ROWCOUNT
IF @err=0
BEGIN
    ...
END
ELSE
BEGIN
    RAISERROR 20001 'Failed to delete date from table my_table'
    BREAK
END

Dumping the activity log and output statements

To be notified on how many rows are being deleted we can output the @nCount variable that is udpated after every deletion with the number of rows affected by the last delete statement. We can use the print statement to output the number.

PRINT '%l! rows deleted', @nCount

Also when dealing with a large amount of rows it is possible for the activity log to get full for the database. To clean up the log use the dump tran command with the truncate_only option.

DUMP TRAN my_db WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY

The Full Batch Delete Script

Putting the entire script together we end up with:

DECLARE @err INT, @nCount INT
SELECT @nCount=0
 
WHILE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE action_ts < '06/01/2009')
BEGIN
 
    DELETE TOP 10000 FROM my_table WHERE action_ts < '06/01/2009'
 
    SELECT @err=@@ERROR, @nCount=@nCount+@@ROWCOUNT
    IF @err=0
        BEGIN
            DUMP TRAN my_db WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
            PRINT '%l! rows deleted', @nCount
        END
    ELSE
        BEGIN
            RAISERROR 20001 'Failed to delete date from table my_table'
            BREAK 
        END
END

For those that worry about the extra time needed for doing the exists select clause in the while loop you could optionally use a separate variable to hold the latest row count and test for if the row count is greater than 0.

It is often the case that developers new to databases will try to perform large data modifications without batching. When this happens in most cases the modification will fail with the error of the transaction log being full after you are presented with the message The transaction log in the database is almost full. Your transaction is suspended until space is made available in the log. What is happening is that the update/insert modification is trying to change too many rows without committing so the transaction log is getting filled up and once it is full the modification fails and no changes get saved to the database.

To correct this it is good practice to perform your database modifications in batches, and upon each iteration of the batch to clear your log transaction file. The dump tran command notifies Sybase that you want to clear the transaction log of a database and with which options. In these cases you simply want to clear it without backing up the log to a file so you would use the with turncate_only option.

DUMP TRAN MY_TABLE WITH truncate_only

Resources

• Sybase 12.5 Manual: dump transaction command