Data Display window

The same window displays either the contents of a table, or the result of a query.

Principal functions of the window are:

• Build a query
• Find rows
• Group columns
• Sort columns
• Compare contents of two tables, or contents of one table at different times
• Pivot report
• You can change the appearance of the display, or set some options.

Data Display toolbar

Many of these buttons will only be visible in certain circumstances:

• Collapse / Expand / Calc will only be visible when you have grouped your data
• More / Close will only be visible when your query is still active (see Get More Rows)
• Apply will only be visible if your table / query has a layout file than can be applied

You can customize the buttons that appear on this toolbar.

Some tasks available in the Data Display Window have shortcut keys.

Sorting the data

• You can sort the contents of the grid by clicking on the column header. This is a "simple" sort and sometimes doesn't work correctly with some data types, such as timestamps.
• The sort also fails to deal correctly with numeric columns that contain (null).
• It sorts only the data that is in the grid. It does not sort the entire table. If you want to sort the table, include an ORDER BY clause in your SQL statement.

Saving displayed data

You can save the data in this display (to disk) and retrieve it later. This is very useful if you are displaying some useful data that you may wish to refer to at some later time.

• Click on File > Save Results and specify the name of the file where you want the results saved. The query-result is saved in an AQT proprietary format. The file type will be grd (AQT saved-grid).
• You can use File > Open Saved Results to redisplay a saved results-grid.
• When you have saved the results of a query, this will be shown in the SQL History window - a table-icon will appear in the Saved column. You can re-display the results by clicking on this table-icon.
• The Layout of the display will be saved also (as a separate file).

Exporting Data

Use File > Export Data (or F7) to export your query results to a file. This will open the Export Data window where you can select the options for the export.

Selecting Data

You can select cells in a number of ways:

• use the mouse to drag-over an area of cells
• click on a cell, hold down the Shift key, then click on a second cell. All cells between these two cells will be selected.
• to select an entire column, click on a cell, right-click and select Select Column
• to select an entire row, click on a cell, right-click and select Select Row
• you can select all cells with Ctrl+A

As you select the cells, information about the range of cells you have selected will appear on the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Copying Data

To copy some cells (to the Windows clipboard), select the cells (as described in the previous section), then hit Ctrl+C, click on Edit > Copy, or use the copy icon.

If you are copying more than one cell, you will be prompted for a number of copy options. These are discussed in more detail in Hints on Grid Usage.

Updating, Deleting, Inserting Rows

To do this, click on Row > Update mode, Delete mode etc, or click on the appropriate icon. These will take you into Update Mode in the Row Display window.

You can also edit data directly in the Data Display window. Quickly make small amendments by using the right mouse menu.

Refreshing the Data

If you have run an update and changed the data, hit Refresh or F5 to redo the query and redisplay the data.

The sort order, row and column position, and grouping will be reestablished after the data has been refreshed. If you have done a Find (Ctrl+F) with the "Only show rows that match" option, the find will be reapplied. Other formatting of the data will be lost; if you have a saved-layout for your data, you can reapply it with View > Apply Layout.

You can also do a Full Refresh (Ctrl+F5) - this refreshes the data without restablishing sort order, row/column position or grouping.

Query Builder and SQL icons

To amend the query that is displaying the data, you can click on either:

• the SQL icon, which opens the Run SQL window, where you can alter the query
• the Query Builder icon, which allows you to edit the query in the Query Builder.

Get More Rows

You will see the Get More Rows button if you have enabled the Get More Rows feature (see Options > Run SQL) and haven't retrieved all the rows from the table/query. This button will get another set of rows from the table. This enables you to scroll through a large table, even if your Max Rows Displayed option is set to a low value.

When this button is visible, your query is still active and (depending on your database) will be consuming resources on the database. As soon as you have finished viewing the data you should close the query: use the Close Query button (or Ctrl+Z).

Note: Get More Rows will only scroll you forward in the database. There is no option to get the previous set of rows.

Close Query

This will close the active query. Once the query has been closed, either when you have clicked on this button or when the table/query has been read to the end, the Get More Rows and Close Query Cursor buttons will no longer be visible.