The current version of dbForge Studio for MySQL does not allow to import the whole Access database at once. Instead, there is an option to migrate separate Access tables in MySQL format.

The article below describes the entire process of converting Microsoft Access tables to MySQL.

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Summary: This article contains information on how to integrate the Review Assistant code review tool into Jenkins by using MSBuild target.

This is the third article in a series of Integration Review Assistant with Continuous Integration Systems. Read the Integrating Review Assistant with MSBuild and Integrating Review Assistant with CCNet articles to get an additional information about the integration with continuous integration systems. Read the rest of this entry »

Summary: This article contains information on how to integrate the Review Assistant code review tool into CruiseControl.NET (CCNet) by using MSBuild target.

This is the second article in a series of Integration Review Assistant with Continuous Integration Systems. Read the Integrating Review Assistant with MSBuild and Integrating Review Assistant with Jenkins articles to get an additional information about the integration with continuous integration systems. Read the rest of this entry »

Summary: This article contains information on how to integrate the Review Assistant code review tool into an MSBuild-based build environment.

This is the first article in a series of Integration Review Assistant with Continuous Integration Systems.

Why Use Continuous Integration?

If several developers are working on the project, from time to time they need to integrate their changes to the project’s code base. The developers also need to run builds to check if the new or updated code can be build successfully. These builds are called integrated builds. Normally, they are performed with a specified schedule.
It is quite difficult to find errors that occur in integrated builds that are performed occasionally, since the number of code changes introduced between the previous and current builds may be huge. To reduce the number of bugs in integrated builds and to make it is easier to find errors, integrated builds should be performed as often as possible. At the best case, builds should be performed right after the source code has been modified and reviewed.
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It’s incorrect to consider a database as a stable unit, since various kinds of undesirable situations can appear over time — database performance degradation, malfunctions, etc.

To minimize occurrence of such situations, maintenance plans are created, that guarantee stability and optimal performance of any databases.

Among maintenance plan tasks, the following can be pointed out:

1. Index defragmentation
   
2. Statistics update
3. Backup and checking the logical and physical integrity of all the objects in database

Let’s consider automation of each task.

So, the first point…

In addition to file system and log file fragmentation, sizable impact on database performance is provided by fragmentation within data-files:

1. Fragmentation inside separate index pages

After record insert, update and delete operations, empty spaces inevitably appear on pages. There is nothing wrong with that, since the situation is regular enough, but there is a slight hitch…

A very important role is played by the string length. For example, if a string is longer than a half of a page, the free half of the page won’t be used. As a result, when increasing the number of strings, the unused space in the database will be increasing. Read the rest of this entry »

Convertion of columns into rows is widely used in real tasks. In this article we will talk about different implementations of T-SQL UNPIVOT transformations.

Let’s assume we have an aggregated table which contains data about results of the games played by each player. We have a task to convert columns into rows.

IF OBJECT_ID ('dbo.Players') IS NOT NULL
	DROP TABLE dbo.Players;

CREATE TABLE dbo.Players
(
	  PlayerID INT
	, Win INT
	, Defeat INT
	, StandOff INT
	, CONSTRAINT PK_Players PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (PlayerID) ON [PRIMARY]
);
INSERT INTO dbo.Players (PlayerID, Win, Defeat, StandOff)
VALUES
	(1, 7,  6,  9),
	(2, 12, 5,  0),
	(3, 3,  11, 1);

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Devart releases new versions of its products: LinqConnect ORM solution, dotConnect ADO.NET data providers, and ORM designer – Entity Developer. The main new feature in dotConnect for Oracle, LinqConnect, and Entity Developer is the support for the latest release of Oracle Database – Oracle 12c. Additionally, dotConnect data providers offer you Sync Framework support, improved PgSqlDump component, load balancing support in dotConnect for MySQL, and other features. This article describes the new features in details.
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Summary: This article describes a scenario of Review Assistant usage in agile development process. The peculiarity of this scenario is that every team member is allowed to join a code review.

Some time ago we received the following question through our technical support:

Hi guys!
Our company is currently evaluating Review Assistant, we are using ‘Simple review workflow’ in our project.
The issue is there is no way to create review without assigning a reviewer to it. This doesn’t allow us to use agile process, when anyone who is available can join a review.
Is there any way to create review in current version?

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Not so long ago, in RAD Studio XE5 there was introduced support for Android application development. On the Internet there can be found a lot of information about Android application development in Delphi XE5, but when it comes to development of database applications, it becomes much more difficult. The point is that the components and drivers included in the RAD Studio XE5 distribution (for example, FireDAC and dbExpress drivers) have severe limitations: on Android and iOS platforms, they support just 2 databases — SQLite and InterBase. And what to do when you develop a serious business-application, that requires remote connection to Oracle, MySQL or PostgreSQL from Android? We have come across such questions on various forums dedicated to database application development for Android and decided to reveal the topic as detailed as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

The top news of the Embarcadero company in 2013, as well as the direct reason for RAD Studio XE5 release, was certainly support for Android. Android is now of rather great interest for programmers, therefore its support in the Embarcadero’s product in a certain way increased activity in the Delphi community.

With the release of ХЕ5, in a variety of specialized blogs, there appeared publications concerning development of “my first application” for the new platform, in which it is described in details how to create, run, and debug a project. Due to the specifics of the products produced by our company, while preparing for the recent release, we were most interested in the debug process, some peculiarities of which we want to discuss here. Read the rest of this entry »