Frequently Asked Questions

Both database reporting tools, Database Tour Pro and Reportizer, use the same report engine. The report templates of them are usually compatible and can be opened/edited by both applications.

But there are also important differences between these tools. While Database Tour Pro is a general database tool, where db reporting is one of the many features, Reportizer is designed for reporting purposes only. Each of them has its own advantages, but Reportizer in most cases provides more powerful and convenient way to design database reports, which achieved by including the following features:

Opportunity to work with report collections (report repositories). Report repositories are either folders with report files or database tables where reports are stored in BLOB or CLOB columns. Reportizer shows reports from open repository in a sorted list with descriptions.
Ability to disable report editing by the application administrator (with password protection), which is necessary sometimes when the software is used by several people and some of them are not advanced users and have permissions only to print reports, not edit.
Ability to edit reports not only in visual designer, but also in text mode.

Both tools, Exportizer Enterprise and Database Tour (Pro), although differ in the interface, use the same export engine and have almost the same export possibilities. But Database Tour has many other database related features, while Exportizer Enterprise is designed for export purposes mainly.

Exportizer sometimes goes a step ahead in export functionality.

Here is a brief comparison of main features:

Feature	EE	DT	DTP
Exporting from GUI
Exporting from command line
Other command line operations
Database reports
Executing custom SQL queries
Executing multi-statement SQL scripts
Other database related capabilities like searching and replacing text, creating tables, working with BLOB data etc

Short instruction

First uninstall the software from the old computer using the Control Panel. Next install it on the new computer. If you already purchased it, register it with your activation key.

Instruction for advanced users

Please see documentation.

When downloading the Database Tour software, consider its compatibility with: 1) your operating system (OS); 2) other database components the application works with.

Compatibility with OS

You can use the Database Tour 32-bit on Windows 32-bit and Windows 64-bit, but Database Tour 64-bit should be used only on Windows 64-bit.

Compatibility with other database components

Let's look at a few examples...

If you want to work with dBase (.dbf) files, Database Tour can use different ways to open such files. No matter what way you choose, all involved database components (drivers, OLE DB providers, and Database Tour) have to be of the same bitness. For example, when you will work with those files through an ODBC driver, the bitness of Database Tour must match the bitness of the ODBC driver.

Similarly, if you need Database Tour to work with .accdb databases (Microsoft Access 2007 and above), the Database Tour bitness must match the bitness of the ACE OLE DB provider or Access ODBC driver depending on what component (OLE DB or ODBC) you choose.

To work with Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Firebird, MySQL, and other server databases, the bitness of Database Tour should be the same as the bitness of the corresponding client; if you plan to work with such databases via ODBC, the bitness of Database Tour should be the same as the bitness of the corresponding ODBC driver.

And if you need to work with databases via old BDE, you should install 32-bit version of Database Tour.

Anyway, on Windows 64-bit, if you do not want to dive into these details, you can install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions at the same time and switch between them whenever you need.

Note, that you may use your purchased product on the amount of computers, which is allowed by purchased license.

For example, if you purchased one license, you may use the application on one computer only, as it is described here.

In your case, it means you have already activated Database Tour with your activation key on other computer(s) and you are trying to activate it on extra computer. So, you should uninstall Database Tour on some other computer(s) and try again. If the problem still exists, please contact us with specifying your order number.

The activation of Database Tour is done in two steps: validation of your activation key, and the activation itself.

You usually should not have problems with first step, if you have valid activation key.

The second step (activation) is used to prevent casual piracy. Note, that you may use your purchased product on the amount of computers, which is allowed by purchased license. Activation just ensures that your serial number was used in compliance with Database Tour license; in other words, it ensures, that amount of computers, where your activation key is used, is not larger than amount of copies purchased.

For example, if you purchased one license, you may use the application on one computer only, as it is described here.

Activation is usually done automatically behind the scene, after you enter your activation key and if you have Internet connection.

In your case, it seems, the serial number validation passed successfully, but activation failed due to either your activation key is used on other computer(s), or you have not Internet connection on your computer.

If you have not Internet connection on the computer where you want to use Database Tour, you should obtain the activation code using another computer, which has Internet connection, and then enter it in the application; just follow instructions, which appear after unsuccessful activation.

By default, the tables are opened in a read-only mode. To turn on the read-write mode, just click the corresponding button above the table. In order to set the read-write mode as default mode for tables, choose Options | Environment | Database and turn on the Allow edit tables after opening option.

In order to have the SQL queries editable, choose Options | Environment | Database and turn on the Use editable queries, if possible option. Please note that some queries cannot be editable (for example, if they use more than one db table etc).

Database Tour executes SQL queries by passing them to the database engine or server used when opening the database. So please refer to the corresponding database engine or server documentation.

Here are some examples:

You are working with an Oracle database: read the Oracle documentation
You are working with a SQL Server database: read the SQL Server documentation
You are working with a PostgreSQL database: read the PostgreSQL documentation
You are working with dBase (dbf) files via BDE: read BDE Local SQL documentation
You are working with a MS Access (mdb) database via Microsoft Jet engine: read the Microsoft Jet documentation

and so on.

See also
Working with SQL Queries

Database Tour allows simultaneous running SQL queries from different SQL windows if the Asynchronous query execution option is set (Options | Environment | Database). This option is turned on by default. It is recommended to use FD interface to connect the database.

But make sure that your database supports multi-threading too. Most of server databases like Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server etc support it. SQLite has limited support for it. To be sure, read the documentation of your database.

You have two ways to do this:

• Select needed database object and move to Script tab. Basic SQL script is generated here.
• Right-click the list of needed database objects, then choose Generate SQL | DDL.... Here, you get the most complete script, sometimes along with related objects and database permissions (please see notes below). Moreover, if you switch to Multiple Selection mode for the object list, you can produce the DDL script for all selected objects.

Notes
The completeness and correctness of the generated DDL code may differ for different database types and different database objects. The most complete code is created for Oracle, PostgreSQL, Interbase, and Firebird databases, especially for such db objects like tables, views, procedures, sequences, and users. We are continuously working for further extending this functionality.

First, if your source database is a server database, make sure you fetch all source records before exporting. It can be done by moving to the last record in the grid.

Second, whenever possible, use FD interface and Use batch mode option for your destination databases. This turns on bulk data loading mode and can speed up the export process up to hundreds times.

In the batch mode context, the Commit interval option sets the size of one data batch. The bigger its value, the higher is the export speed. But very big values may cause memory overflow during the exporting. Play with this value to find the optimal one for you.

It can be a challenge to export large tables or queries from one database to another. Sometimes, you may get an Out of memory error during the export process or even when opening such a table.

You should try non-standard approaches. See more in Database Tour documentation.

Yes. You can do this by two ways.

1. If your database allows such formulas in SQL, use this way. For example:

SELECT
  column1,
  column2,
  column3,
  column1 + column2 as MyFormula1,
  column2 || column3 as MyFormula2
FROM MyTable

2. Another way is to specify your formulas at Field Mappings step of Export dialog. In formulas here, you can use columns of your source table, special functions, and even local files.

So, click Add button. A new row will appear for a new field mapping. Click ... button in the first column and specify your expression (formula). Examples:

a. Get sum of two columns

vle_expr(dataset_field_val(1, 'column1') + dataset_field_val(1, 'column2'))

b. Replace specific characters in the column's data

vle_expr(string_replace(dataset_field_val(1, 'column3'), char(0), ' '))

c. Get the size of a file, referred in the column's data

vle_expr(file_size(dataset_field_val(1, 'column3')))

In the column to the right, specify the target field name as you usually do for exporting physical fields.

If you export data to another BYTES database field, then everything is quite simple. All you have to do is to match the source and target fields in Field Mappings step of Export dialog.

If you export data to some of file formats, e.g. Excel or HTML, the result will be in a hexadecimal format string, which will start with 0x.

If you export data to database fields of CHAR or CLOB (i.e. text compatible) types, a bit more work is needed. In Field Mappings step of Export dialog, match the source and target fields, then specify the following expression instead of the source field name:

vle_expr(dataset_field_hex_val(1, 'YOUR_SOURCE_FIELD_NAME'))

As a result, the data will be exported to the destination as a hexadecimal format string, which starts with 0x.

And you can export data from the hexadecimal format string to BYTES field too. Just make sure your source string starts with 0x: this will indicate that the source data is the sequence of bytes in a hexadecimal form.

Open your source database. Go to the table list and right-click it. Choose Multiple Selection. Then select needed tables in the list and click Export button. Choose the target format and export options, then proceed to Table Mappings step and specify how the source tables will match the destination tables or files.

Here is an instruction:

1. Open your source table or query and click Export.
2. Choose the export format. If you want only export images from the BLOB field, the target format does not matter. Let's choose Text.
3. Specify a file name for the target text file. This file will not contain any useful information, so you may delete it after all.
4. Go to the Field Mappings step. Delete all field mappings except the mapping for the BLOB field. Empty the target field name.
5. Write the formula for the target image file name(s). This is the most interesting and most important step. Go to Target File column and click '...' button to the right to invoke the Expression Builder. You will see the default formula:
   vle_expr(extract_file_path(target_file_name(1)) + 'Name_' + to_string(dataset_row_count(1, 0)) + '.???')
   Here, extract_file_path(target_file_name(1)) extracts the directory path from the target text file name; if you want, replace it with the constant path from your computer (don't forget to add the backslash at the end!).
   The to_string(dataset_row_count(1, 0)) part of the formula adds the current record number to the end of file name to ensure that the name is unique within the record set.
   Replace the ??? with desired file extension.
   If the source dataset already contains unique file names in some field, just remove the default formula and write something like this:
   dataset_field_val(1, 'file_name')
   (replace file_name with the actual name of the field containing the file names).
   Click OK to apply the formula.
6. Click Save button to save the field mappings to file for future use.
7. Click Export and check the results.

Notes
1. Existing files are overwritten without asking.
2. You still can export BLOB or any other fields to separate files during your regular exporting. Just specify the file name formulas for needed fields in field mappings. As a result, you'll get two in one: the main exported target, and the set of individual files for choosen fields.

You can export the content of any column to an individual file. The process is very similar to the exporting BLOBs to image files, described above:

1. Open your source table or query and click Export.
2. Choose the export format. Let's choose Text.
3. Specify a file name for the target text file.
4. Go to the Field Mappings step.
5. Write the target file name formulas for each column, which content you need to save to separate files. In Target File column, click '...' button to the right to invoke the Expression Builder. You will see the default formula:
   vle_expr(extract_file_path(target_file_name(1)) + 'Name_' + to_string(dataset_row_count(1, 0)) + '.???')
   Here, extract_file_path(target_file_name(1)) extracts the directory path from the target text file name; if you want, replace it with the constant path from your computer (don't forget to add the backslash at the end!).
   The to_string(dataset_row_count(1, 0)) part of the formula adds the current record number to the end of file name to ensure that the name is unique within the record set.
   Replace the ??? with desired file extension.
   If the source dataset already contains unique file names in some column(s), just remove the default formula and write something like this:
   dataset_field_val(1, 'file_name')
   (replace file_name with the actual name of the field containing the file names).
   Click OK to apply the formula.
6. Click Save button to save the field mappings to file for future use.
7. Click Export and check the results.

Notes
Existing files are overwritten without asking.

Yes. Database Tour Pro can perform database operations from command line with optional use of /silent switch.

See also
Brief info and examples: Command Line Using.
Full technical documentation about command line.

In Database Tour, you can manage transactions (if your databases supports them).

You can either work in Autocommit mode or use explicit transactions. Choose Options | Environment... | Database to manage Autocommit settings.

For server databases, each Table or SQL window can be associated with a separate transaction.

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Choose Database | Registered Databases....

At the top, you will see the path to the file with stored database settings. You can either copy that file from Windows Explorer or export the settings to a new file using the corresponding button to the right. Then place the file on destination computer and import it to Database Tour from Database | Registered Databases... interface.

Yes. When this library exists in the folder, where BDE (Borland Database Engine) files are located, the corresponding items will appear in Database Tour Table | BDE utilities menu.

Attention! BDE is obsolete technology. You use this feature at your own risk.

First, make sure you use Database Tour 32-bit. BDE is 32-bit and it cannot be accessed from 64-bit applications.

Then check if the BDE correctly installed:

• Find the BDE location. Go to Windows registry and open HKLM\SOFTWARE\Borland\Database Engine key (if your OS is 32-bit) or HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Borland\Database Engine key (if your OS is 64-bit), and read the DLLPath parameter.
• Go to that folder and find idapi32.dll file there.
• Check the version of the library. It must be 5.0 or higher.

If any of the steps above fails, then BDE is not properly installed.