I have an archive system that had to be on two sql databases for simplicity
one is
Archive2009
and the other Archive2010
they are both on the same sql server and instance and have identical structures
however I have a page that needs to view the old one and the new one (I can make two seperate pages)
How best would I go about doing this? Dynamically changing the connection string etc?
If you are accessing these databases via L2S, then you'll probably want a DBML that points to Archive2009, and a DBML that points to Archive2010. Then your queries can use whichever DBML is appropriate. If you run into namespace issues, use different generated namespaces for each DBML.
You probably best use two Linq-to-SQL data contexts, e.g. one for Archive2009 and the other for Archive2010. That way, each of the data contexts is dealing with just a single database and you can select stuff from both data contexts at the same time.
Related
I need to update a C# application that imports data into a database using LINQ. I am new to LINQ. The problem I am trying to solve is that there are two versions of the DB. They have the same table names and are 90% identical in structure, but have one table (out of about 60) which has a different definition.
If LINQ were not involved, I would simply select a different query depending on which version of the application (DB) the user wanted to import to, and leave the remainder of the application as is.
My impression is that LINQ is intended for situations in which the DB structure is cast in stone, and that I cannot have two LINQ table definitions having the same name and simply or easily switch between them (or do so at all).
In this case, must I have (at least) a separate entire Linq.DataContext for each version of the DB? Or have I misunderstood something basic here?
You might be able to make that happen using separate mappings. In this case you would have to hand code your mappings as apposed to the attribute-based mapping that the LINQ designer or SqlMetal does for you. I've never done it, but I think it might work. I just googled for "Linq to Sql POCO mapping" and found this: Achieving POCO s in Linq to SQL. This person is loading his mapping from an xml file at runtime. You could conditionally load one of two different mapping files.
I have two databses on a SQL Server -- one for development (call it "TestData"), and one for production (call it "LiveData"). I make changes to TestData -- typically adding tables or adding new fields to existing tables (rarely dropping anything) and creating or modifying Stored Procedures. At some point, I would like to update the LiveData tables, stored procedures, etc. with the changes made to TestData. I only want this to affect the schema, not the actual data. What is the best way to do this? I am new to SQL Server, so the more detailed the explanation, the better.
edit: I know there are third-party programs out there, but I'm looking into ways to do this without a separate software, just using scripts, etc.
You might want to take a look at redgate SQL Compare.
DBComparer is a great free utility to compare schemas. It is a little buggy and crashes sometimes, but other than that it works great.
I have a PostgreSQL database whose tables are divided amongst a number of schemas. Each schema has a different set of access controls; for example, one schema might be read-only to regular users, while they are allowed to create tables on another. Schemas also act as namespaces, so users don't have to worry about duplicating existing tables when they create new ones.
I want to create a similar setup using MySQL. Does it have an equivalent concept? If not, how can I most closely simulate it? I would prefer not to use multiple databases.
Database should be the closest one.
Prefixing table names is what's done with most MySQL-driven apps.
I need to convert data that already exists in a MySQL database, to a SQL Server database.
The caveat here is that the old database was poorly designed, but the new one is in a proper 3N form. Does any one have any tips on how to go about doing this? I have SSMS 2005.
Can I use this to connect to the MySQL DB and create a DTS? Or do I need to use SSIS?
Do I need to script out the MySQL DB and alter every statement to "insert" into the SQL Server DB?
Has anyone gone through this before? Please HELP!!!
See this link. The idea is to add your MySQL database as a linked server in SQL Server via the MySQL ODBC driver. Then you can perform any operations you like on the MySQL database via SSMS, including copying data into SQL Server.
Congrats on moving up in the RDBMS world!
SSIS is designed to do this kind of thing. The first step is to map out manually where each piece of data will go in the new structure. So your old table had four fields, in your new structure fileds1 and 2 go to table a and field three and four go to table b, but you also need to have the autogenerated id from table a. Make notes as to where data types have changed and you may need to make adjustments or where you have required fileds where the data was not required before etc.
What I usually do is create staging tables. Put the data in the denormalized form in one staging table and then move to normalized staging tables and do the clean up there and add the new ids as soon as you have them to the staging tables. One thing you will need to do if you are moving from a denormalized database to a normalized one is that you will need to eliminate the duplicates from the parent tables before inserting them into the actual production tables. You may also need to do dataclean up as there may be required fileds in the new structure that were not required in the old or data converstion issues becasue of moving to better datatypes (for instance if you stored dates in the old database in varchar fields but properly move to datetime in the new db, you may have some records which don't have valid dates.
ANother issue you need to think about is how you will convert from the old record ids to the new ones.
This is not a an easy task, but it is doable if you take your time and work methodically. Now is not the time to try shortcuts.
What you need is an ETL (extract, transform, load) tool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extract,_transform,_load#Tools
I don't really know how far an 'ETL' tool will get you depending on the original and new database designs. In my career I've had to do more than a few data migrations and we usually always had to design a special utility which would update a fresh database with records from the old database, and yes we coded it complete with all the update/insert statements that would transform data.
I don't know how many tables your database has, but if they are not too many then you could consider going the grunt root. That's one technique that's guaranteed to work after all.
If you go to your database in SSMS and right-click, under tasks should be an option for "Import Data". You can try to use that. It's basically just a wizard that creates an SSIS package for you, which it can then either run for you automatically or which you can save and then alter as needed.
The big issue is how you need to transform the data. This goes into a lot of specifics which you don't include (and which are probably too numerous for you to include here anyway).
I'm certain that SSIS can handle whatever transformations you need to do to change it from the old format to the new. An alternative though would be to just import the tables into MS SQL as-is into staging tables, then use SQL code to transform the data into the 3NF tables. It's all a matter of what your most comfortable with. If you go the second route, then the import process that I mentioned above in SSMS could be used. It will even create the destination tables for you. Just be sure that you give them unique names, maybe prefixing them with "STG_" or something.
Davud mentioned linked servers. That's definitely another way that you can go (and got my upvote). Personally, I prefer to copy the tables over into MS SQL first since linked servers can sometimes have weirdness, especially when it comes to data types not mapping between different providers. Having the tables all in MS SQL will also probably be a bit faster and saves time if you have to rerun or correct portions of the data. As I said though, the linked server method would probably be fine too.
I have done this going the other direction and SSIS works fine, although I might have needed to use a script task to deal with slight data type weirdness. SSIS does ETL.
After dragging two tables in from one database, I switch to another and drag a table in. Now I get a message if I want to replace the connection string with the new one. I want tables from multiple databases in one DBML. Is this possible?
It is entirely possible to reference multiple databases within the same DBML, PROVIDED those databases reside on the same SQL Server.
In Visual Studio, right-click on the DBML, click "Open with..." , and select XML (Text) Editor with Encoding.
You will see your first table that you dragged in looks like this:
<Table Name="dbo.MyTable1fromMyDatabase1" Member="MyTable1fromMyDatabase1">
For your tables from other databases you wish to add, enter them like this:
<Table Name="MyDatabase2.dbo.MyTable1fromMyDatabase2" Member="MyTable1fromMyDatabase2">
This will work assuming the same login works for both databases, and your LINQ expressions can now query across both databases!
I don't believe that what you're looking for is possible, since the DataContext would then not have any easy way of resolving results from two separate databases.
If you're looking to create domain objects from two separate databases, then your best bet would be to have two separate DBML's, then use a bridge (GOF) or some other related design pattern to instantiate your domain objects.
Another option is to create a server link on on database that points to the other and make aliases to the remote tables from the "local" DB. I believe then you'd be able to reference them as if they were all in the same database.
We can also create a view that queries the table in the other database. We can select, insert and update this view, which will affect the table in the other database as well.