Options - Table information

These options govern how AQT obtains the information on tables (and other objects) in your system. If AQT is unable to correctly display the tables in your system you could try changing some of these parameters, otherwise they should not be changed.

Get Table Info from

This determines whether table information is obtained from the System Tables or from the ODBC API calls. The default is System Tables (if that option is available for this database).

This parameter cannot be changed while you are currently signed onto a database.

For a further discussion on this see System-Table Query Feature.

Use Parameters

This is quite a technical parameter. By default, this is set on. You should only consider changing this if you are having severe problems with you database access. This option was introduced to circumvent problems we were having with some ODBC drivers.

If you are technical type you might want to read the technical explanation of this option.

Always Quote table and column names

In some circumstances, column and table names need to have double-quotes placed around them. This is needed either

• if the name contains a special character (such as a space or a comma), or
• if the name is a reserved word in the database.

By default, AQT will only place quotes around the name if it contains a blank or special character. However this isn't completely full-proof – AQT checks for some but not all special characters, and it doesn't check for reserved words.

If you set this option on, AQT will always put quotes around table and column names.

For DB2 for iSeries, support the *SYS Naming Convention

For DB2 for iSeries, table names can be referenced using schema/table-name, rather than schema.table_name. Example:

select * from QSYS2/SYSTABLES

This is known as the *SYS Naming Convention. You may wish to adopt this standard if you are running scripts that refer to tables using this convention.

If so, you need to:

• when you configure your ODBC Datasource, on the Server tab specify a Naming Convention of System naming convention (*SYS). This option is only available when using Client Access Express, and not if you are using DB2/Connect.
• on AQT Options, set the option For DB2 for iSeries, support the *SYS Naming Convention option

Show Favorites on Startup

If this option is selected, AQT will show the Favorites display when it opens the Database Explorer window.

If the database does not have any favorites defined, AQT will show the Objects display.

Number of items in History Cache

This specifies the number of entries in the object-list cache in the Database Explorer. Specify 0 to disable this feature. This value applies to each Database Explorer window, as each Database Explorer window has it's own cache.

The cache is held in memory; the larger this value, the more memory will be used by AQT. You should avoid specifying an unnecessarily high value.

If this value is changed, it won't come into effect until the next time you connect to a database.

Attempt to qualify unqualified table names

This is a technical option.

In the Run SQL window and Query Builder windows, it is possible for an unqualified table name to be used. Eg.

Select * from Employee

AQT needs to find the columns for this table. There are two ways AQT can do this:

• Use the queries that AQT normally uses for obtaining the columns of a table. The problem with this is that AQT needs to know the table-schema, however this is not given in the query. To deal with this, AQT "guesses" what the schema might be - for instance, it might be the same as the userid of the person running the query. It has a number of other rules in addition to this.
• Do a "prepare" of the query Select * from tablename. This will return the names and data types of the columns, though not fuller information such as the column description. This method will fail if you do not access to the table.

When Attempt to qualify unqualified table names is set, AQT will use the first method. This is the default.

It is recommended that you do not change this option unless you frequently use unqualified table names, and AQT is having trouble finding the columns for the table. There are several circumstances we know of where this might be a problem:

• if you use SET SCHEMA, SET CURRENT SQLID (or similar statement) to change your default schema
• for Oracle, if you are using Remote Synonyms.
• for DB2 for iSeries, if a Library List has been specified on the configuration of the ODBC Datasource

Get Related Table information from User Defined Relationships only

When using the Query Builder or the Link to Related Table feature of AQT, AQT needs to find information on table relationships. It get this from two places:

• from the database (eg. foreign key relationships)
• from User Defined Relationships

If you do not have any relationships defined to the database, the database query is superfluous and adds unnecessary overhead to AQT. In this case, you may wish to select this option. When this is done, AQT will not query the database for foreign key relationships - it will get related table information from UDRs only.

Grid Options

Font

This allows you to specify the font used on the Database Explorer window. The specified font is used on both the grids and the Object Tree.

This option is useful if you need to use a specialized font on this window; this might be required if you have unicode characters in your table or column names.

Row Height

This sets the height of rows in the grids on the Database Explorer. If you select a larger font that the default, you may need to increase the row height. The default is 260.

Revert to Defaults

This returns the Fonts and Row Height to their default values.