The perfect companion utility to Delphi, Visual dBASE, Paradox, or any other program that makes use of the Borland Database Engine (BDE)
Soft Sector, Inc.
PO Box 81480
Cleveland OH 44181
See the document ORDER.TXT for ordering information.
You can use CompuServes SWREG service. Search for ssDBUtil.
Introduction
Thank you for your interest in ssDBUtil. We believe this to be a very complementary product to your existing database program, whether it is Visual dBASE or Paradox. Also, this utility will be useful to developers who make use of the Borland Database Engine, such as Delphi programmers.
We wrote this utility for in-house use, but thought that others would be able to make use of it. We have seen programs that perform similar functions to ssDBUtil, but we havent seen one that easily allows the user to select a group of files to work with.
The functions ssDBUtil will perform are:
Printing the structure of a table (fields and indexes)
Printing a summary report of a databases tables, including file size, # of records, # of indexes, etc.
Zapping a table (completely emptying it)
Reindexing a table
Packing a table (dBASE files only)
The great thing about ssDBUtil is that it lets you perform any or all of the above functions on a whole group of files. You can, for instance, specify an alias where you want to zap all the tables. Without ssDBUtil, you would probably have to load up each table individually using dBASE; that can get tedious if you have many tables!
In addition to working well with local tables, ssDBUtil has also been extensively tested with SQL tables as well. Specifically, we have tested it with Borlands Interbase v4.0 for NT and Microsofts SQL Server v6.5 for NT. We expect it will work without a hitch on the other SQL servers that the BDE supports.
About Soft Sector, Inc.
Soft Sector, Inc. (SSI) is a Cleveland, OH based provider of hardware and software solutions. Our main language for development is Borland Delphi. In the course of our application development, we have created a number of components and tools that would be useful to other developers. We are in the process of packaging these components for retail distribution.
Contacting Soft Sector, Inc.
We can be contacted in a variety of ways:
US Mail: Soft Sector, Inc., PO Box 81480, Cleveland, OH 44181 USA
The newest version of ssDBUtil, as well as our other affordable products, can always be found at our Web site.
About the Unregistered Version
ssDBUtil is being distributed as a Shareware program. That means that you must pay for it if you find it useful. When you start the unregistered version, you will notice that the nag screen makes you wait 10 seconds. The registered version obviously doesnt have this limitation. Also, when you register, you get full source code for ssDBUtil! If you use ssDBUtil, please register! We need your support to continue to develop useful programs and components.
Installation
Installation of ssDBUtil is simple. Just unZIP the program into a directory, then create an icon in Windows pointing to the SSDBUTIL.EXE file.
Using ssDBUtil
ssDBUtil is straightforward and easy-to-use. Below is the main screen for ssDBUtil.
The first thing you need to do is specify which tables you want to work with. In the upper left corner, you will see a box that reads "Choose Tables From...". Using the radio buttons, you can choose to list tables in a directory or by specifying a BDE alias. You can type a directory name right in the box in the upper right corner, or you can click the Browse button and select the directory from a visual tree.
If you click the "Alias" radio button, the box in the upper right will change to allow you to select the alias. A drop down list will contain all of the Aliases you currently have set up through the BDE. Simply select the one you want to use.
After you select either a directory or an alias, the listbox on the left entitled "Tables" will be filled with the tables that the program found in the directory or alias you specified. To select your working tables, simply highlight a table (or tables, it is a multi-select list box) and click the "Add" button. You can also use the "Add All" button to use all of the tables currently listed in the left hand box.
Once youve selected a table or tables to use, they will appear in the right hand list box. If you change your mind and want to remove tables from your working list, simply click on them and click the "Remove Table" button. You can also remove all the tables from your working list by clicking the "Remove All" button.
After youve picked tables to work with, you need to choose the functions you want performed on those tables. There is a group box in the lower left that allows you to select any or all of the functions youd like to perform. A powerful feature of ssDBUtil is that you can choose multiple functions to be performed.
When youre done selecting tables and choosing functions, the button entitled "Perform Functions" will become enabled. You should click on it to start performing your functions. If you chose "Zap Tables" as a function, the program will ask if you if you really want to zap the tables. If you chose either of the print functions, the Windows standard printer dialog will appear allowing you to specify a printer for output.
Thats all there really is to it! Pretty easy, no? Note that there are some pretty flexible ways to use ssDBUtil. For example, you can choose an alias, select some tables from it, choose another alias, pick more tables, and so on. You are not limited to performing functions on tables that all reside within the same directory or alias.
Future Enhancements
This is version 1.0 of ssDBUtil. We have several ideas for future enhancements. If you have any features you would like to see, please let us know!
- Ability to create ObjectPascal code to create the tables you specified. This would be an extremely handy feature for Delphi programmers who want their programs to be able to create the tables on the fly.
- Ability to create SQL code to create the tables you specified. This could be useful to a wide variety of people, including programmers, DBAs, etc.
- Built-in query-by-example system, as well as an SQL interface.
- Built-in table browser and editor. We ultimately would like ssDBUtil to be the only tool a programmer needs. We (as well as many other developers) have found that most database utilities out there are lacking in some way.
