Data Viewer in BC2

[Ernie]

I usually dump data from different sources and used the Data Viewer from BC2 to look for changes/additions.

Using BC2, I was able to configure the Data Viewer to compare different files, customizing the comparison, marking some columns as Unimportant, not sorting by key columns, etc. I would save the "rules" and BC2 created ".bcdv" files which I stored in a common location.

This made it easy to later export the same data, and use BC2's data viewer using the ".bcdv" files to compare the data, without having to go back and indicate which columns were unimportant, delimiters, etc.

Is this capability present in BC3, or do I have to specify all of the 'rules' for the data comparison each time I dump and compare these sets of files?

(Sorry for the possible newbie questions, but the interface/functionality appears to be significantly different between BC2 & BC3. It will probably be a learning curve for me to get used to the new design )

[Erik]

In BC3, you can save Data Compare sessions which include rules settings. If you are spawning the Data Compare from the Folder Compare, the Session Settings dialog will allow you to "Use for these files within parent session" or "Use for all files with parent session". These options can be picked from the list at the bottom left.

[Ernie]

Okay ... two questions:

1. Using BC2's Data Viewer to compare database table dumps to look for differences, I would initially right click on a file from the folder view ... select open with data viewer ... I would get a prompt for existing .BCDV rules file ... select one or cancel the selection (in order to create a new set of rules) ... then compare the files using the data viewer. Each time I selected to compare files with the data viewer, I was able to select the .BCDV rules file to use. I have built up quite a few of these .BCDV files which I kept in one location for convenience. Is there any way to import these rules?

2. I can see where I can modify the rules, and using them using Session Settings, I tried to "Use for these files within parent session" and then tried "Use for all files with parent session". Then I see the session under the Auto-saved Sessions. (One problem ... when I saved the rules, I added a description which does not appear in the saved sessions view)

But, regardless, I cannot seem to figure out how to apply these rules when I go back to view the same two files. If I select data viewer from the folder view, I get the default data view again, my previous sessions (columns to ignore, sorting) are not present and I cannot figure out how to load the data viewer, with the same two files, with the previously saved rules.

Maybe I'm just missing something obvious. Can you point me to more documentation on the new functionality of the data viewer?


Edit:

Based on post (http://www.scootersoftware.com/vbull...read.php?t=325), it appears that I cannot apply data viewer rules on a per file basis. For example, I have several DB scripts that dump tables from a 'base' database, and then the same tables from a 'test' database. Each table is output to a subdirectory, either 'base' or 'test' using the table name and a '.dat' extension.

Previously, I could select one of the .dat files and right click, open with data viewer, and select a previously saved .BCDV rules file.

Can anyone confirm if this is still possible with BC3? Maybe I'm just missing something, because I have not been able to figure out how do accomplish this using BC3.