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Pulling data from several tables

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    Pulling data from several tables

    I have been working on this on and off for a few weeks and still insure how to proceed further...
    We receive monthly tables from 6 stores containing sales data. Tables have common fields: storeid, productid, date, qtysold, Amount. I then produce reports which are simple in structure like sales by product by month, or by store by product, etc... The issue is not in the reports. The issue is how to pull/combine/merge (whatever you want to call it) data from the 6 tables. The way I am doing it now is, I use Append operation to append the records and fields we want to see (Storeid, Productid, Date, qty, Amount) filtered for the period to an existing table. But as the tables become bigger, the append operation is taking longer. I am wondering if there is a faster, more efficient way of doing this. A long time board member, DaveM introduced me to the notion of virtual table created in ram disk, apparently very fast (see here http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=80370) which I thought could be applicable to my case. If a virtual table in ram disk is faster approach, it would appreciate any help on this. DaveM did provide a process but I still could not see how it is done; or any other approach that's faster that my append op.

    #2
    Re: Pulling data from several tables

    An append operation is generally very fast unless there are multiple index tags involved. Are you doing a simple append all records? In such a case I code to drop the indexes before the append, run the append(s), then code to recreate the indexes.

    That way the indexes are updated at the end of the whole process, not a the conclusion of each append.
    There can be only one.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Pulling data from several tables

      Hi Stan,
      Indexes..., that's very likely the case. When you say drop then rebuild indexes, are you referring to the source tables or to the target table. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I am not very familiar with indexes. Thanks for your help.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Pulling data from several tables

        Target table. The source table indexes are not used. If you add records to the target table (append) the target table index tags must be updated to reflect the new records.
        There can be only one.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Pulling data from several tables

          Got it, Thanks Stan.
          Please allow me a last question (less dumb than the 1st one, I think).

          Assume 1 million records in each table (3 years of data) and I want a report for a specif period (say 3/1/2009 - 5/31/2009). Based on your experience, which of these 2 procedures will run faster:

          1) Append all records from the 6 tables (= 6 million records in target) then filter the 6 million records for records between these 2 dates, or
          2) Embed the filtering in each of the 6 append operations (after the append, target will contain only records between these 2 days) and run the report with no further filtering.
          Thanks Stan

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Pulling data from several tables

            Neither.

            Keep a master sales table updated each week by the append method containing all sales records for all stores. Report on this table filtering for the desired date range where the table is indexed by sales date.

            In many cases like this you will probably be reporting on at least a week's sales per store. In many cases it will be a company sales period. Summarize the master sales table each week by week by store and all stores and each period by period and store and all stores. Reporting on these much smaller tables is much quicker.
            There can be only one.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Pulling data from several tables

              Ok, got it. Thanks for your help.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Pulling data from several tables

                Yeah... Stan's method may be better if all you wants to do in life is run lean software and fast reports... sheesh...

                I want you load in the 6 million records and let us know which method is really faster... how fast loading is... c'mon... what's a little time.

                Wish I had 6 million records... :(

                Actually, I would be interested in how your initial load goes.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Pulling data from several tables

                  Gaby, you may want to stay away from that ram disk. I have not used one in over 10 years. It did take a bit of software to create it and I am not sure it would be compatible with todays systems. As Stan said in previous replies his method may be a lot faster for you and safer.

                  I do some appends too. They are done daily and they leave the old data and only add the new(unique records). Also, if you are not caring about the old data(say more than 3 years), you can delete(very fast) in the 6 tables prior to your append since you are working with copies of tables from the stores. Packing the tables at that time would be a good idea. This can all be done with functions/scripts/operations and maybe one button push.

                  .
                  Dave Mason
                  [email protected]
                  Skype is dave.mason46

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