From MySQL to SiR via ODBC John S. Lemon. From MySQL to SiR via ODBC How did it start ?...

From MySQL to SiR via ODBC

From

MySQLto

SiRvia

ODBC

John S. Lemon


How did it start ?Interdivisional ‘rivalry’ / ‘power complex’-

“Calls are being delayed longer this year in your division and this is reflecting on the service”

Had to prove it in 24 hours before weekly division managers meeting.


Summary• Initial crude solution – ODBC & SPSS

• ‘hoist by own petard’ - too successful

• MySQL extractions no help – bugs / features

• Re-think

• Need to ‘automate’ / ‘replicate’

• Use vPQL + ODBC > SiR > SPSS


Problem• Needed to know poor response rates.

• System provided reports and charts were no help


Problem

• Charts and tables geared towards ‘management’

• Gave overall views but fail to answer detailed questions

• Why ?


Problem

• Organisation is the problem

• Calls can ‘enter’ at any point not just ‘top’

• Then migrate anywhereHelpDesks

Applications Support Network Support Desktop Support

Hardware Maintenace


Problem

• Charts and tables geared towards ‘management’

• Didn’t show movement between subgroups

• Only times were ‘Open’ and ‘Close’

• So if call closed by subgroup ‘X’ then reports allocated total time to ‘X’ even if 90% was in ‘Y’ !!!


ODBC and SPSS

• Use ODBC from SPSS to extract data

• Create two files and manipulate within SPSS

• Merge and Aggregate create data file

• Still not good enough as limited ‘cross record functions’


ODBC and SPSS

• Use my SPSS2SiR routines ?

• No – ‘one-off’ and time constrained – hadn’t used for some years so ….. ?

• ‘Save As’ fixed ASCII from SPSS

• Create simple data base in SiR

• Allowed cross record functions


ODBC and SPSS• Crude but effective solution

• Unfortunately not end of problem

• ‘Hoist by my own petard’– “A petard is an explosive device used to

break down doors or walls with a ‘slow burning fuse’ “

– Sometimes the burn was not as slow as the bomb placer would like.


My ‘Petard’• Met the deadline – but ….

• Management requested more detail and complexity

• Actually heard that the phrase was – “If it is not your ….ing division that

needs a ‘kick up the a..e’ ! Then whose does.”


My ‘Petard’• Also wanted weekly updates

• Using SPSS route wasn’t practical – Cumbersome

– Crude

– Had tailored process for one division

– So couldn’t be easily extended or ‘automated’

• Back to drawing board


Next Step – First thoughts• MySQL data base - so obvious answer

• Use MySQL queries to generate data files– Even though updates were via SiR vPQL

generated SQL code thought might work

– Few more grey hairs later – no success

– Dump data out and read into SiR

• ‘Feature’ – no last column !!


Next Step – Second thoughts• ODBC worked for MySQL to SPSS so

why not use for this

• Dave Doulton uses a lot so …it must be good !

• How to do it ?

• Direct into SiR


Next Step – Second thoughts• Appeared to work well

• However– Many very short records for describing the

action

– Also many ‘actions’ missing

• Why ?

• Took some while to ‘crack’ the reason


Next Step – Second thoughts

LF / CR


Next Step – Second thoughts• Why was this important ?

• Whatever I was doing ( right or wrong ) SiR treated it as ‘end of record’

• Truncated MySQL records and so missed out the important bit !!


Next Step – Second thoughts


Next Step – Third thoughts• Back to the ‘drawing board’

• Have to write a vPQL programme

• How ?

• Obvious thing RTFM

• Read The Fine Manual

• You thought I was going say Flipping !

• Or something else !!


Next Step – Third thoughts• Actually not a manual

– ( how many are nowadays ? )

• Help files – complete with sample program

• RTFHF doesn’t flow as easily off the tongue as RTFM

• Didn’t quite understand all the options

• Now for a bit of ‘history’


PROGRAM INTEGER*4 errid conid statid rnum cnum STRING*20 cname colval STRING*80 qtext errstr CONNECT conid SERVER 'ODBC' DATABASE 'Company' USER 'me'

PASSWORD 'mypwd,COMPANY,HIGH,HIGH' PREFIX 'c:\SIR2002\TEST\' ERROR errid STATEMENT statid CONNECT conid ERROR errid WRITE errid PREPARE STATEMENT statid CONNECT conid COMMAND 'SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE' ERROR errid WRITE errid EXECUTE STATEMENT statid CONNECT conid ERROR errid WRITE errid COMPUTE cnum = COLCOUNT (conid,statid) COMPUTE rnum = ROWCOUNT (conid,statid) WRITE 'Columns returned ' cnum ' Rows returned ' rnum FOR I = 1,cnum . COMPUTE cname = COLNAME (conid,statid,i) . WRITE cname END FOR SET J (0) LOOP . COMPUTE j = j+1 . COMPUTE res = NEXTROW (conid,statid) . IF (res LE 0) EXIT LOOP . FOR I = 1,cnum . IFTHEN (COLTYPE(conid,statid,i) eq 1) . COMPUTE colval = COLVALS (conid,statid,j,i) . ELSE . COMPUTE colval = FORMAT (COLVALN (conid,statid,j,i)) . ENDIF . WRITE colval . END FOR END LOOP DELETE STATEMENT statid CONNECT conid DISCONNECT conid END PROGRAM

The ‘Good’ old days ?


Progress ?• Number of basic ‘crucial commands to

get ODBC data– CONNECT– STATEMENT– PREPARE STATEMENT– EXECUTE STATEMENT– DELETE STATEMENT– DISCONNECT

• After ‘RTFHFing’ still had problems


Progress ?• Just couldn’t get a ‘connection’ or

anything

• Solution – E-mail David Baxter !!!

• As usual came to rescue – problem solved

• Still not sure why – just happy it does


Progress ? • This is the help file suggestion CONNECT conid SERVER 'ODBC' DATABASE 'Company' USER 'me' PASSWORD 'mypwd,COMPANY,HIGH,HIGH' PREFIX 'c:\SIR2002\TEST\' ERROR errid

• This is what I (we!!) got to work CONNECT conid SERVER 'ODBC‘ DATABASE 'Supportworks ODBC‘ USER 'train01‘ PASSWORD 'train01‘ PREFIX '‘ ERROR errid


Progress ?• Can’t ‘re-read’ / ‘re-extract’ a column

• Why would you want tocom045 - user identifiercom - department code

• If needed then extract twice ODBC doesn’t complain !!!

• Or extract to string and ‘chop up’ which is what I did for Date/Time vars


Progress ?COMPUTE TEMP468= COLVALS ( conid, statid, ROWNUM, 4 );

TEMP4D = CDATE ( ( SBST ( TEMP468, 1, 10 ) ), 'DDIMMIYYYY' ); TEMP4T = CTIME ( ( SBST ( TEMP468, 12, 8 ) ), 'HHIMMISS' );

• Extract the MySQL Date/Time variable into a string ( COLVALS )

• Then ‘chop out’ the bit you want and convert to date or time

• Numeric values need COLVALN COMPUTE TEMP2 = COLVALN ( conid, statid, ROWNUM, 2 );


SiR wins• Typical output but presents problem

• Start date and end date but no ‘intermediates’

• Generate ‘dummy’ records


Hindsight• Would I use ODBC again ?

• Yes – with what I know now

• I would not attempt extracting data from two MySQL tables and merge them in ODBC query statement

• SiR does it more ‘cleanly’

• Would be more careful in the planning.

From MySQL to SiR via ODBC John S. Lemon. From MySQL to SiR via ODBC How did it start ?...

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