Re: Data Studio future enhancements

This would work for me too. My order of preference would be:
1. Visual Explain
2. Navigator like ability to run a CL command.
3. Navigator like ability to
a. Run All
b. Run From Selected
c. Run Selected
4. Ability to interface with external applications.

jon

date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 18:54:37 +0000
from: "Jones, Mike" <mike.jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] WDSCI-L Digest, Vol 12, Issue 533

Features lacking in Data Studio (to the best of my knowledge), where the
features I miss the most are listed first, that would be nice to see in RDi:
1) Navigator like ability to run a CL command by preceding it with a "CL:"
in the run script window. I want that to easily set a library list, or to
run CHGQRYA, CHGJOB, CHGPFCST, CHGPFTRG, ENDJRNPF, STRJRNPF, and
occasionally a handful of other CL commands. I already have SQL table and
scalar user defined functions that will execute CL commands as parameters,
so I can work around that by typing more verbose commands. However, the CL:
Navigator ability returns command execution result messages in some cases
that come in handy at times, and that behavior might be difficult for me to
mimic from SQL UDTF's inside RDi (i.e. message feedback area including CL
execution messages). I could fairly easily return those CL command execution
messages in a result set window from a UDTF that executes CL using the
JOBLOG_INFO UDTF I suppose, but if this functionality were built-in it would
likely perform faster than calling JOBLOG_INFO.
2) Double Click option to run a single SQL statement inside a longer SQL
script (like Navigator supports). Perhaps Data Studio supports this and
I've not figured out where to apply said setting.
3) Visual Explain for System i (I use Visual Explain in Navigator
occasionally, in particular for the Index Advisor).

This next feature may be a bit much to wish for, but I'd like the ability to
call the SQL Script feature in RDi from an external application, and to be
able to pass the modified SQL script back to the caller after making changes
and performing testing. This next paragraph, one of my current use cases,
explains why this would be beneficial to me, but I'm not your bread and
butter RDi user since I use SQL functions to run SQL scripts (i.e. I'm not
using RPG to run SQL):

I use a Microsoft Access application to maintain database migration SQL
Scripts in a System i SQL script host-side database, which works great,
except for the fairly primitive Textbox control editor built into Access
used to maintain the SQL script column in the script database. When I have a
large, complex script that requires extensive editing, I copy and paste it
over into the RDi / LPEX editor, make my changes there, copy/paste it into
Navigator to test, and copy/paste it back into Access to save the final
result to the host. My ideal world is where I had an Access button "Edit in
Data Studio or RDi", where I could call the external SQL Script feature and
have the SQL script pop up in a Eclipse tab to perform editing and testing,
and when I was done, hit a save button where the results were transparently
sent back to Access. My gut tells me that is probably possible but it would
likely take me a lot of time to write or find a custom plug-in to handle the
interprocess co mmunication. My ideal world for an SQL feature includes
LPEX caliber editing, coupled with configurable SQL formatting, with
advanced SQL build assist, with robust SQL script execution including some
of the Navigator features that aren't currently in Data Studio (mainly those
listed above plus Navigator like buttons Run All, Run from Selected, Run
Selected), with Visual Explain for i, coupled with the ability to call said
function from an external application with an SQL script as a parameter, and
the ability to send the modified SQL script back to the calling application.

I also spend a fair amount of time working with System Catalog metadata so I
need fast, preferably integrated access to that data inside Data Studio or
RDi, but I've not yet taken the time to see if that is possible in Data
Studio. Some of the System i System Catalog objects are fast and some have
performance issues, so I suspect "fast" access to all of them will require
significant host side changes. If RDi had a feature or plug-in designed for
efficient slicing and dicing of a System i System Catalog I'd likely gain
productivity from its use as long as performance was good.

Mike