Re: System i Navigator visual explain HOWTO?

No problem - not sure why you're not seeing the same as I am - maybe different version of Navigator - I'm running the iSeries Access V5R4 version when looking at this stuff.

I assumed - and you know what that does - that your help was working, so I didn't copy the help text here. Luis did, and it's something about a complex expression at that point in the process - maybe the attributes boxes will describe exactly what it is.

I agree - this instrumentation they're doing is really cool - far too much information sometimes!!

If you feel like it, I'd love to see the attributes when you click on that icon.

Vern

Buck wrote:

On 5/25/2010 2:28 PM, Luis Rodriguez wrote:

I'm not trying to be a jerk (it comes naturally, haha!)
Right click, and the only thing in the context menu is Help. Clicking
on it makes the context window go away, but no other panel ever comes
up. The same is true of context menu help on every icon, so
'Complicated' is not alone there.

Menu bar Help is not working now either, although it did earlier in the
day. Must be time to reboot ;-)

This 'Complicated' icon isn't important - I just thought is was a funny
sort of thing to see in a visual explain panel. I deeply sympathise
with the people who had to write this stuff. I don't think it's easy or
fun. I don't want to seem like I'm picking on the team. I'm pretty
sure I have wildly unrealistic expectations.

I'll try to use it more often and make some sense out of it. When my
brain finally expands enough to understand something new, I'll try to
update the wiki.
--buck

Buck,

Right click the icon, select help. Any Help? :-)

Regards,

Luis Rodriguez
IBM Certified Systems Expert — eServer i5 iSeries


On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Buck <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 5/25/2010 1:19 PM, Vern Hamberg wrote:

Thanks Vern, it never occurred to me to look for Visual Explain in the
DB2 books. Lesson learnt.

As a curiosity, I have an icon that doesn't seem explained anywhere:
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6383/complicatedi.png

The attribute boxes on the right belong to a different icon.
--buck

Forgot to put the link in -

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v6r1m0/topic/rzajq/rzajq.pdf

Vern Hamberg wrote:

Buck

The V6R1 Database Performance and Query Optimization manual shows all
the Visual Explain icons throughout the Data access chapter.

Also, if you right click any icon, there's a context menu, and help is
one of the options.

HTH
Vern

Buck wrote:

I'm looking for a detailed description of what all the nice graphics
mean on Visual Explain. I'm trying to understand a series of complex
SQL statements in terms of performance characteristics, and I'm pretty
much overwhelmed by all the little boxes.

I Searched The Fine Web, and although there is stuff out there for

V5R2,

I'm not sure that's particularly applicable to V5R4. If it is, I'll
just go hunting down all the old articles I skipped over because we
didn't use SQL then :-)

I searched 'our' wiki (wiki.midrange.com) as well as the new IBM wiki
(http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/WikiPtype/IBM+i)

which

at this embryonic moment is just a link dump. The Navigator home page
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/software/navigator/gettingstarted.html
has a bunch of stuff from 2005 as well as some broken links to articles
that I can probably find in print faster than on the web.

The help included with Navigator was not very helpful.

Strangely enough, I might just spin through the suggested keys in files
QQIDXA, QQIDXK and QQIDXD as suggested by

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r4/topic/rzajq/idxadvisor.htm

and build the suggested indexes from that and just not worry about the
visual aids.

--buck