SQL Server Compact Edition

Another name change? Well... read Steve Lasker's post to find out more.

Looks like I will have to change all my product's documentation...

Data Port Console Draft 1

The first draft version of Data Port Console is now ready to download. Before you download this, please uderstand that this is not a product yet. Your SDF files are not safe with this software: use only backed up copies so you don't lose any valuable data. Some of the features are still partially implemented or not implemented at all. Remember: this is not a finished product, not even a Beta.

So why am I posting this? I want your feedback on how the product should evolve and I am ready to give away free licenses for the best feature ideas. Use the special forum to express yourself.

Handling multiple databases

I'm preparing what will be the first Data Port Console Draft for public download. It will be an unfinished piece of code: you will see lots of holes in it and I will politely ask you not to use any production database with it. But it will be good enough for you to see what is coming up and the whole "Draft" idea is to get user input while I am developing this new product. The basics are working on SQL CE Console, so let's make this one a much better tool.

One of the biggest improvements you will see is that the code now handles multiple databases per connection (DesktopSqlCe users - this will also apply to you). As a matter of fact, and as you should expect, the whole product is based on DesktopSqlCe and I am using this as an excuse to add more features to the component.

The versions so far used to tie up the Pipe (physical connection) to the SqlCeDatabase in a one-to-one relationship. No more! Now you can have more than one SqlCeDatabase object per Pipe even on a RAPI connection. This enables some interesting scenarios indeed, and the first consumer for this one will be the new Console. Stay tuned for the incoming Draft 1.

SQL CE Console Updated (1.3.700)

This update solves an interesting issue with SQL Mobile / SQL Everywhere: altering the table schema. When you need to add or change columns to a table with all the data in, SQL CE Console makes a full copy of the source table to the target table while converting the necessary data (you may need to add msdadc.dll to your device, although this is not required on the desktop). So how are IDENTITY columns handled?

With SQL CE 2.0 there are no problems because the clever OLE DB provider allows you to overwite the generated value.

SQL Mobile, on the other hand, has a mean OLE DB engine - the only way you can influence the next IDENTITY value is by altering the column's seed through either a SQL command or a low-level OLE DB interface (my solution).

To avoid changing the IDENTITY seed for every copied row I use an optimization algorithm that keeps track of the next value and only alters the column if there is a difference between the value to write and the automatically generated one. This is actually a variation of the same algorithm found in Data Port Wizard.

For all you SQL CE Console users, here's the latest download.

Accessing SQL Mobile-specific column properties

I wrote a small article on Retrieving IDENTITY properties with the ATL OLE DB Consumer Templates. It illustrates how to create a custom restriction class to retrieve the SQL Mobile-specific column schema properties: AUTOINC_MIN, AUTOINC_MAX, AUTOINC_NEXT, AUTOINC_SEED and AUTOINC_INCREMENT.