wxSQList2++ history/overview

Flowchart Summary of TIL Lab Core Processing Group

The previous project wxSQList++ was a complicated attempt to incorporate agreat deal of functionality into a single application.  This was a resounding success as far a demonstration of the procedures a logic to successfully export TheList.xlsb coherently to a local database, but the project was too bulky and too slow to be practical.

The second trimmed down iteration of the project, wxSQList2++, was built from some of the nicer portions of the original.  The scope of the application was simply to extract, analyze, and transform the data from TheList.xlsb.  This application only needed to access TheList.xlsb through use of the M$ Component Object Model (specifically OLE Automation of Excel), and output plain text to be utilized later.  Although this approach seems clunky, it executes quickly and provides data backup in a single step.

The output format was similar to that produced by mysqldump (dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysqldump.html).  This was done because at the time I needed a way of making quick snapshots of the data in the inventory, and I was also importing that data into two different databases (one local, one remote).  The output text contains all the commands and data required to rebuild the TIL Lab Inventory in a MySQL database schema.

The remaining functionality of the original wxSQList++ was augmented and included in a batchfile.  The batch file writes a log of the wxSQList2 application debugging output, copies the mysql compatible dump text of TheList.xlsb to an archive on the server, and finally invokes the mysql client in order to execute the sql dump as an import.  This system is mostly plain text and does not require messing with the C++ source code in order to change the archive locations or the database connection information.

Altogether, wxSQList2++, mysql client, and a batchfile take care of the “TheLIST to DB Export procedures” component of the flow chart.