ExpandedFeatureList

Expanded Feature List

• Provides two completely separate SQL editor windows, each of which may point to the same database or different databases. With a single click you may link them together so they will load queries, load results, scroll, and filter in synchronization. Click again to unlink them. Press an override key to temporarily reverse the link/unlink state for a single operation.
• Generates a typical visual difference display common to many diff programs for text files, only this operates on database result sets. Row differences are denoted similar to textual diff programs, showing additions, deletions and changes. The specific columns that differ within those rows are highlighted further, pinpointing the differences.
• To perform a difference operation, you simply need to specify two queries that provide matching column names. All matching columns will be used in the comparison; unmatched columns will be ignored. To match column names, you use the standard SQL mechanism to alias a column, as in {{select name as CompanyName from . . .}}. To skip some columns that match, simply add the column to an ignore list that resides with one or both of the queries as a SQL comment set off with special delimiters.
• Select from a choice of three difference engines that provide varying levels of performance and accuracy. Simply selecting a different engine will re-evaluate all the current data (without refetching anything from the source) and update the visual differencing on screen.
• Apply a filter defined by a general SQL predicate (e.g. {{ID < 1000 and name like 'Sam%'}}) and the filtered results are re-evaluated to update the visual differencing on screen.
• Search for values in the result set or search for text in the query.
• Load the result set from either a live database or from an archived, local copy (in CSV format).
• Operational configuration lets you tailor the application to your preferences, including: automatic differencing on/off when needed, automatic query execution upon query load on/off, results from live/local data, automatic syntax highlighting on/off, tandem/synchronized operation on/off.
• Connection editor lets you define a set of database connections to SQL Server, Oracle, or any ODBC data source. Passwords, if you choose to store them, are stored with secure encryption. The connection set is easily exported or imported, allowing you to copy it from one installation to another.
• Meta-queries provide a convenient mnemonic aid allowing you to search for tables or fields with wildcards, find non-empty tables, identify database version, and list other useful queries, based on the database type.
• Controls to navigate the differences allow you to scroll to next or previous difference, first or last difference, to return to the current difference if you have scrolled elsewhere, and to set the current difference to the current location.
• Typically you start with a query and obtain results from live databases or archived results. But you could also start with just data, then automatically generate a query from the data, and finally customize the queries to match columns, reorder rows, etc.
• You have sorting flexibility to manipulate the results to your liking: sort result sets on multiple columns via the standard SQL order by clause in your query, or sort on a single column by clicking a column header with the mouse or by single keystroke (Control/Shift/digit) where n may select any of the first nine columns.
• You have display flexibility to hide or show any number of columns via context menu; any of the first nine may be hidden/shown by single keystroke (Control/Alt/digit).
• Adjust cell sizes: Adjust the column widths to fit either the header text or the data via keystroke or context menu. Increase or decrease row heights via keystroke.
• Automate data analysis by running any number of queries with a single click, generating a summary result table.