In this chapter, we will cover:
Connecting to a database
Getting data from a database
Getting data from a database by providing parameters
Getting data from a database by running a query built at runtime
Inserting or updating rows in a table
Inserting new rows when a simple primary key has to be generated
Inserting new rows when the primary key has to be generated based on stored values
Deleting data from a table
Creating or altering a table from PDI (design time)
Creating or altering a table from PDI (runtime)
Inserting, deleting, or updating a table depending on a field
Changing the database connection at runtime
Loading a parent-child table
Building SQL queries via database metadata
Performing repetitive database design tasks from PDI
Databases are broadly used by organizations to store and administer transactional data such as customer service history, bank transactions, purchases, sales, and so on. They are also used to store data warehouse data used for Business Intelligence solutions.
In this chapter, you will learn to deal with databases in Kettle. The first recipe tells you how to connect to a database, which is a prerequisite for all the other recipes. The rest of the chapter teaches you how to perform different operations and can be read in any order according to your needs.
Note
The focus of this chapter is on relational databases (RDBMS). Thus, the term database is used as a synonym for relational database throughout the recipes.
Through the chapter you will use a couple of sample databases. Those databases can be created and loaded by running the scripts available at the book's website. The scripts are ready to run under MySQL.
For more information about the structure of the sample databases and the meaning of the tables and fields, please refer to Appendix A, Data Structures. Feel free to adapt the recipes to different databases. You could try some well-known databases; for example, Foodmart (available as part of the Mondrian distribution at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mondrian/) or the MySQL sample databases (available at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/index-other.html).
As part of the sample databases used in this chapter you will use the Pentaho BI platform Demo databases. The Pentaho BI Platform Demo is a preconfigured installation that lets you explore the capabilities of the Pentaho platform. It relies on the following databases:
By default, all those databases are stored in Hypersonic (HSQLDB). The script for creating the databases in HSQLDB can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pentaho/files. Under Business Intelligence Server | 1.7.1-stable look for pentaho_sample_data-1.7.1.zip. While there are newer versions of the actual Business Intelligence Server, they all use the same sample dataset.
These databases can be stored in other DBMSs as well. Scripts for creating and loading these databases in other popular DBMSs for example, MySQL or Oracle can be found in Prashant Raju's blog, at http://www.prashantraju.com/projects/pentaho.
Beside the scripts you will find instructions for creating and loading the databases.
If you intend to work with a database, either reading, writing, looking up data, and so on, the first thing you will have to do is to create a connection to that database. This recipe will teach you how to do this.
In order to create the connection, you will need to know the connection settings. At least you will need the following:
Host name: Domain name or IP address of the database server.
Database name: The schema or other database identifier.
Port number: The port the database connects to. Each database has its own default port.
Username: The username to access the database.
Password: The password to access the database.
It's recommended that you also have access to the database at the moment of creating a connection.
Open Spoon and create a new transformation.
Select the View option that appears in the upper-left corner of the screen, right-click on the Database connections option, and select New. The Database Connection dialog window appears.
Under Connection Type, select the database engine that matches your DBMS.
Fill in the Settings options and give the connection a name by typing it in the Connection Name: textbox. Your window should look like the following:
Press the Test button. A message should appear informing you that the connection to your database is OK.
A database connection is the definition that allows you to access a database from Kettle. With the data you provide, Kettle can instantiate real database connections and perform the different operations related to databases. Once you define a database connection, you will be able to access that database and execute arbitrary SQL statements: create schema objects like tables, execute SELECT
statements, modify rows, and so on.
In this recipe you created the connection from the Database connections tree. You may also create a connection by pressing the New... button in the Configuration window of any database-related step in a transformation or job entry in a job. Alternatively, there is also a wizard accessible from the Tools menu or by pressing the F3 key.
Whichever method you choose, a Settings window, like the one you saw in the recipe, shows up, allowing you to define the connection. This task includes the following:
A database connection can only be created with a transformation or an opened job. Therefore, in the recipe you were asked to create a transformation. The same could have been achieved by creating a job instead.
The recipe showed the simplest way to create a database connection. However, there is more to know about creating database connections.
If you intend to use the same database in more than one transformation and/or job, it's recommended that you share the connection. You do this by right-clicking on the database connection under the Database connections tree and clicking on Share. This way the database connection will be available to be used in all transformations and jobs. Shared database connections are recognized because they appear in bold. As an example, take a look at the following sample screenshot:

The databases books and sampledata are shared; the others are not.
The information about shared connections is saved in a file named shared.xml
located in the Kettle home directory.
No matter what Kettle storage method is used (repository or files), you can share connections. If you are working with the file method, namely ktr
and kjb
files, the information about shared connections are not only saved in the shared.xml
file, but also saved as part of the transformation or job files even if they don't use the connections.
Instead of typing fixed values in the database connection definition, it's worth using variables. Variables live in either of the two places: in the kettle.properties
file, which lives in the Kettle home directory, or within the transformation or job as a named parameter. For example, instead of typing localhost
as the hostname, you can define a variable named HOST_NAME
, and as the host name, type its variable notation as ${HOST_NAME}
or %%HOST_NAME%%
. If you decide to move the database from the local machine to a server, you just have to change the value of the variable and don't need to modify the transformations or jobs that use the connection.
Tip
To edit variables stored in the kettle.properties
file, just open the kettle.properties
editor, which can be found under Edit | Edit the kettle.properties file.
This is especially useful when it's time to move your jobs and transformations between different environments: development, test, and so on.
The recipe showed you how to provide the general properties needed to create a connection. You may need to specify additional options; for example, a preferred schema name, or supply some parameters to be used when the connection is initialized. In order to do that, look for those options in the extra tab windows under the General tab of the Database Connection window.
Kettle offers built-in support for a vast set of database engines. The list includes commercial databases (such as Oracle), open source (such as PostgreSQL), traditional row-oriented databases (such as MS SQL Server), modern column-oriented databases (such as Infobright), disk-storage based databases (such as Informix), and in-memory databases (such as HyperSQL). However, it can happen that you want to connect to a database that is not in that list. In that case, you might still create a connection to that database. First of all, you have to get a JDBC driver for that DBMS. For Kettle versions previous to 5.0, copy the JAR file containing the driver to the libext/JDBC
directory inside the Kettle installation directory. For versions after 5.0, copy the JAR file containing the driver to the lib
directory. Then create the connection. For databases not directly supported, choose the Generic database connection type. In the Settings frame, specify the connection string (which should be explained along with JDBC), the driver class name, and the username and password. In order to find the values for these settings, you will have to refer to the driver documentation.
If you are not sure that the database connection will be accessible when a job or transformation runs from outside Spoon, you might precede all database-related operations with a Check DB connection job entry. The entry will return true
or false
depending on the result of checking one or more connections.
If you're used to working with databases, one of your main objectives while working with PDI must be getting data from your databases for transforming, loading in other databases, generating reports, and so on. Whatever operation you intend to achieve, the first thing you have to do after connecting to the database is to get that data and create a PDI dataset. In this recipe, you will learn the simplest way to do that.
To follow these instructions, you need to have access to any DBMS. Many of the recipes in this chapter will be connecting to a MySQL instance. It is recommended that to fully take advantage of the book's code, (which can be found on the book's website) you have access to a MySQL instance.
Create a transformation and drop a Table Input step into the canvas. You will find it in the Input category of steps.
From the Connection drop-down list, select the connection to the database where your data resides, or create it if it doesn't exist.
In the SQL textarea, type the SQL statement that returns the data you need. So far, you should have something like the following:
Click on Preview. This will bring a sample list of rows so you can confirm that the data is as expected.
Click on OK to close the Table Input configuration window, and you'll be ready to use the data for further manipulation.
The Table Input step you used in the recipe is the main Kettle step to get data from a database. When you run or preview the transformation, Kettle executes the SQL and pushes the rows of data coming from the database into the output stream of the step. Each column of the SQL statement leads to a PDI field and each row generated by the execution of the statement becomes a row in the PDI dataset.
Once you get the data from the database, it will be available for any kind of manipulation inside the transformation.
In order to save time, or in case you are not sure of the name of the tables or columns in the database, instead of typing the SQL statement, click on the Get SQL select statement... button. This will bring the Database Explorer window. This window allows you to explore the selected database. By expanding the database tree and selecting the table that interests you, you will be able to explore that table through the different options available under the Actions menu.
Double-clicking on the name of the table will generate a SELECT
statement to query that table. You will have the chance to include all the field names in the statement, or simply generate a SELECT *
statement. After bringing the SQL to the Table Input configuration window, you will be able to modify it according to your needs.
If you need to create a dataset with data coming from a database, you can do it just by using a
Table Input step. If the SELECT
statement that retrieves the data doesn't need parameters, you simply write it in the Table Input setting window and proceed. However, most of the times you need flexible queries—queries that receive parameters. This recipe will show you how to pass parameters to a SELECT
statement in PDI.
Assume that you need to list all products in Steel Wheels for a given product line and scale.
Perform the following steps to connect to a database with parameters:
Create a transformation.
Before getting the data from the database, you have to create the stream that will provide the parameters for the statement.
Create a stream that builds a dataset with a single row and two columns: the product line parameter and the scale parameter. For this exercise, we will be using a Data Grid step, but other steps like the Generate Rows step will also work. Opening the Data Grid step, add the
productline_par
andproductscale_par
lines to the Meta tab. They should both be of type String:Switch to the Data tab. Notice how the fields created in the Meta tab build the row for data to be added to. Create a record with
Classic Cars
as the value forproductline_par
and1:10
as the value forproductscale_par
:Now drag a Table Input step to the canvas and create a hop from the Data Grid step, which was created previously, towards this step.
Now you can configure the Table Input step. Double-click on it, select the connection to the database, and type in the following statement:
SELECT PRODUCTLINE , PRODUCTSCALE , PRODUCTCODE , PRODUCTNAME FROM PRODUCTS p WHERE PRODUCTLINE = ? AND PRODUCTSCALE = ?
Tip
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
In the Insert data from step list, select the name of the step that is linked to the Table Input step. Close the window.
Select the Table Input step and do a preview of the transformation. You will see a list of all products that match the product line and scale provided in the incoming stream:
When you need to execute a SELECT
statement with parameters, the first thing you have to do is to build a stream that provides the parameter values needed by the statement. The stream can be made of just one step; for example, a data grid with fixed values, or a stream made up of several steps. The important thing is that the last step delivers the proper values to the Table Input step.
Then, you have to link the last step in the stream to the Table Input step where you will type the statement. What differentiates this statement from a regular statement is that you have to provide question marks. When you preview or run the transformation, the statement is prepared and the values coming to the Table Input step are bound to the placeholders; that is, the place where you typed the question marks.
Note that in the recipe the output of the stream was a single row with two fields, which is exactly the same number of question marks as in the statement.
Note
The number of fields coming to a Table Input step must be exactly the same as the number of question marks found in the query.
Also note that in the stream, the product line was in the first place and the product scale in the second place. If you look at the highlighted lines in the recipe, you will see that the statement expected the parameter values to be exactly in that order.
Note
The replacement of the markers respects the order of the incoming fields.
Any values that are used in this manner are consumed by the Table Input step. Finally, it's important to note that question marks can only be used to parameterize value expressions just as you did in the recipe.
Keywords or identifiers (for example; table names) cannot be parameterized with the question marks method.
If you need to parameterize something different from a value expression, you should take another approach, as explained in the next recipe.
There are a couple of situations worth discussing.
In the recipe you received the list of parameter values in a single row with as many columns as expected parameter values. It's also possible to receive the parameter values in several rows. If, instead of a row you had one parameter by row, as shown in the following screenshot, the behavior of the transformation wouldn't have changed:

The statement would have pulled the values for the two parameters from the incoming stream in the same order as the data appeared. It would have bound the first question mark with the value in the first row, and the second question mark with the value coming in the second row.
Note that this approach is less flexible than the previous one. For example, if you have to provide values for parameters with different data types, you will not be able to put them in the same column and different rows.
Suppose that you not only want to list the Classic Cars in 1:10 scale, but also the Motorcycles in 1:10 and 1:12 scales. You don't have to run the transformation three times in order to do this. You can have a dataset with three rows, one for each set of parameters, as shown in the following screenshot:

Then, in the Table Input setting window you have to check the Execute for each row? option. This way, the statement will be prepared and the values coming to the Table Input step will be bound to the placeholders, once for each row in the dataset coming to the step. For this example, the result would look like the following:

When you work with databases, most of the time you start by writing an SQL statement that gets the data you need. However, there are situations in which you don't know that statement exactly. Maybe the name of the columns to query are in a file, or the name of the columns by which you will sort will come as a parameter from outside the transformation, or the name of the main table to query changes depending on the data stored in it (for example sales2010
). PDI allows you to have any part of the SQL statement as a variable, so you don't need to know the literal SQL statement text at design time.
Assume the following situation: you have a database with data about books and their authors, and you want to generate a file with a list of titles. Whether to retrieve the data ordered by title or by genre is a choice that you want to postpone until the moment you execute the transformation.
You will need a book database with the structure as explained in Appendix A, Data Structures.
Create a transformation.
The column that will define the order of the rows will be a named parameter. So, define a named parameter named
ORDER_COLUMN
, and puttitle
as its default value.Now drag a Table Input step to the canvas. Then create and select the connection to the book's database.
In the SQL frame, type the following statement:
SELECT * FROM books ORDER BY ${ORDER_COLUMN}
Check the option Replace variables in script? and close the window.
Use an Output step such as a Text file output step to send the results to a file, save the transformation, and run it.
Open the generated file and you will see the books ordered by title.
Now try again. Press the F9 key to run the transformation one more time.
This time, change the value of the
ORDER_COLUMN
parameter typinggenre
as the new value.Click on the Launch button.
Open the generated file. This time you will see the titles ordered by genre.
You can use Kettle variables in any part of the SELECT
statement inside a Table Input step. When the transformation is initialized, PDI replaces the variables by their values provided that the Replace variables in script? option is checked.
In the recipe, the first time you ran the transformation, Kettle replaced the variable ORDER_COLUMN
with the word title
and the statement executed was as follows:
SELECT * FROM books ORDER BY title
The second time, the variable was replaced by genre
and the executed statement was as follows:
SELECT * FROM books ORDER BY genre
You may use variables not only for the ORDER BY
clause, but in any part of the statement: table names, columns, and so on. You could even hold the full statement in a variable. Note however that you need to be cautious when implementing this.
Note
A wrong assumption about the metadata generated by those predefined statements can make your transformation crash.
You can also use the same variable more than once in the same statement. This is an advantage of using variables as an alternative to question marks when you need to execute parameterized SELECT
statements.
Named parameters are another option to store parts of statements. They are part of the job or transformation and allow for default values and clear definitions for what the parameter is. To add or edit named parameters, right-click on the transformation or job, go into its settings, and switch to the Parameters tab.
Two of the most common operations on databases, besides retrieving data, are inserting and updating rows in a table.
PDI has several steps that allow you to perform these operations. In this recipe you will learn to use the Insert/Update step. Before inserting or updating rows in a table by using this step, it is critical that you know which field or fields in the table uniquely identify a row in the table.
Note
If you don't have a way to uniquely identify the records, you should consider other steps, as explained in the There's more... section.
Assume this situation: you have a file with new employees of Steel Wheels. You have to insert those employees in the database. The file also contains old employees that have changed either the office where they work, the extension number, or other basic information. You will take the opportunity to update that information as well.
Download the material for the recipe from the book's site. Take a look at the file you will use:
EMPLOYEE_NUMBER, LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, EXTENSION, OFFICE, REPORTS, TITLE 1188, Firrelli, Julianne,x2174,2,1143, Sales Manager 1619, King, Tom,x103,6,1088,Sales Rep 1810, Lundberg, Anna,x910,2,1143,Sales Rep 1811, Schulz, Chris,x951,2,1143,Sales Rep
Explore the Steel Wheels database, in particular the employees
table, so you know what you have before running the transformation. Execute the following MySQL statement:
SELECT EMPLOYEENUMBER ENUM , CONCAT(FIRSTNAME,' ',LASTNAME) NAME , EXTENSION EXT , OFFICECODE OFF , REPORTSTO REPTO , JOBTITLE FROM EMPLOYEES WHERE EMPLOYEENUMBER IN (1188, 1619, 1810, 1811); +------+----------------+-------+-----+-------+-----------+ | ENUM | NAME | EXT | OFF | REPTO | JOBTITLE | +------+----------------+-------+-----+-------+-----------+ | 1188 | Julie Firrelli | x2173 | 2 | 1143 | Sales Rep | | 1619 | Tom King | x103 | 6 | 1088 | Sales Rep | +------+----------------+-------+-----+-------+-----------+ 2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Perform the following steps to insert or update rows in a table:
Create a transformation and use a Text File input step to read the file
employees.txt
. Provide the name and location of the file, specify comma as the separator, and fill in the Fields grid.Now, you will do the inserts and updates with an Insert/Update step. So, expand the Output category of steps, look for the Insert/Update step, drag it to the canvas, and create a hop from the Text File input step toward this one.
Double-click on the Insert/Update step and select the connection to the Steel Wheels database, or create it if it doesn't exist. As target table, type
EMPLOYEES
.Fill the grids as shown in the following screenshot:
Save and run the transformation.
Explore the
employees
table by running the query executed earlier. You will see that one employee was updated, two were inserted, and one remained untouched because the file had the same data as the database for that employee:+------+---------------+-------+-----+-------+--------------+ | ENUM | NAME | EXT | OFF | REPTO | JOBTITLE | +------+---------------+-------+-----+-------+--------------+ | 1188 | Julie Firrelli| x2174 | 2 | 1143 |Sales Manager | | 1619 | Tom King | x103 | 6 | 1088 |Sales Rep | | 1810 | Anna Lundberg | x910 | 2 | 1143 |Sales Rep | | 1811 | Chris Schulz | x951 | 2 | 1143 |Sales Rep | +------+---------------+-------+-----+-------+--------------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
The Insert/Update step, as its name implies, serves for both inserting or updating rows. For each row in your stream, Kettle looks for a row in the table that matches the condition you put in the upper grid—the grid labeled The key(s) to look up the value(s):. Take for example the last row in your input file:
1811, Schulz, Chris,x951,2,1143,Sales Rep
When this row comes to the Insert/Update step, Kettle looks for a row where EMPLOYEENUMBER
equals 1811
. When it doesn't find one, it inserts a row following the directions you put in the lower grid. For this sample row, the equivalent INSERT
statement would be as follows:
INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES (EMPLOYEENUMBER, LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, EXTENSION, OFFICECODE, REPORTSTO, JOBTITLE) VALUES (1811, 'Schulz', 'Chris', 'x951', 2, 1143, 'Sales Rep')
Now look at the first row:
1188, Firrelli, Julianne,x2174,2,1143, Sales Manager
When Kettle looks for a row with EMPLOYEENUMBER
equal to 1188
, it finds it. Then, it updates that row according to what you put in the lower grid. It only updates the columns where you put Y
under the Update column. For this sample row, the equivalent UPDATE
statement would be as follows:
UPDATE EMPLOYEES SET EXTENSION = 'x2174' , OFFICECODE = 2 , REPORTSTO = 1143 , JOBTITLE = 'Sales Manager' WHERE EMPLOYEENUMBER = 1188
Note that the name of this employee in the file (Julianne
) is different from the name in the table (Julie
), but, as you put N
under the column Update for the field FIRSTNAME
, this column was not updated.
Here there are two alternative solutions to this use case.
If you just want to insert records, you shouldn't use the Insert/Update step but the Table Output step. This would be faster because you would be avoiding unnecessary lookup operations; however, the Table Output step does not check for duplicated records. The Table Output step is really simple to configure; just select the database connection and the table where you want to insert the records. If the names of the fields coming to the Table Output step have the same name as the columns in the table, you are done. If not, you should check the Specify database fields option, and fill the Database fields tab exactly as you filled the lower grid in the Insert/Update step, except that here there is no Update column.
If you just want to update rows, instead of using the Insert/Update step, you should use the Update step. You configure the Update step just as you configure the Insert/Update step, except that here there is no Update column.
The following is an alternative way for inserting and updating rows in a table.
Note
This alternative only works if the columns in the Key field's grid of the Insert/Update step are a unique key in the database.
You may replace the Insert/Update step by a Table Output step and, as the error handling stream coming out of the Table Output step, put an Update step.
Tip
In order to handle the error when creating the hop from the Table Output step towards the Update step, select the Error handling of step option.
Alternatively, right-click on the Table Output step, select Define error handling..., and configure the Step error handling settings window that shows up. Your transformation would look like the following:

In the Table Output step, select the table EMPLOYEES
, check the Specify database fields option, and fill the Database fields tab just as you filled the lower grid in the Insert/Update step, except that here there is no Update column.
In the Update step, select the same table and fill the upper grid—let's call it the Key fields grid—just as you filled the Key fields grid in the Insert/Update step. Finally, fill the lower grid with those fields that you want to update, that is, those rows that had Y
under the Update column.
In this case, Kettle tries to insert all records coming to the Table Output step. The rows for which the insert fails go to the Update step, and get updated.
If the columns in the Key fields grid of the Insert/Update step are not a unique key in the database, this alternative approach doesn't work. The Table Output would insert all the rows. Those that already existed would be duplicated instead of getting updated.
This strategy for performing inserts and updates has been proven to be much faster than the use of the Insert/Update step whenever the ratio of updates to inserts is low. In general, for best practice reasons, this is not an advisable solution.
It's very common to have tables in a database, where the values for the primary key column can be generated by using a database sequence (in those DBMSs that have that feature; for example, Oracle) or simply by adding 1 to the maximum value in the table. Loading data into these tables is very simple. This recipe teaches you how to do this through the following exercise.
There are new offices at Steel Wheels. You have the data of the offices in a file that looks like the following:
CITY;PHONE;ADDRESS;COUNTRY;POSTALCODE Sao Paulo;11 3289-3703;Avenida Paulista 1330;Brazil;01310-200 Sao Paulo;11 3104-1116;Rua Boa Vista, 51;Brazil;01014-001 Buenos Aires;11 4582-6700;Cabildo 2127;Argentina;C1428AAT
You have to insert that data into the Steel Wheels database.
For this recipe, you will use the Pentaho sample database. If you don't have that database, you'll have to follow the instructions in the introduction of this chapter.
As you will insert records into the office table, it would be good if you explore that table before doing any insert operations. The following is a sample query:
SELECT OFFICECODE , ADDRESSLINE1 , CITY , COUNTRY FROM OFFICES ORDER BY OFFICECODE; +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ | OFFICECODE | ADDRESSLINE1 | CITY | COUNTRY | +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ | 1 | 100 Market Street | San Francisco | USA | | 2 | 1550 Court Place | Boston | USA | | 3 | 523 East 53rd Street | NYC | USA | | 4 | 43 Rue Jouffroy D'abbans | Paris | France | | 5 | 4-1 Kioicho | Tokyo | Japan | | 6 | 5-11 Wentworth Avenue | Sydney | Australia | | 7 | 25 Old Broad Street | London | UK | +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ 7 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Create a transformation and create a connection to the
sampledata
database.Use a Text file input to read the
offices.txt
file with data about the new offices.From the Data Warehouse category drag-and-drop a Combination lookup/update step and create a hop from the previous step towards this one.
Double-click on the step, select the connection to the
sampledata
database, and typeoffices
as the Target table.Fill the Key fields grid as shown:
In the Technical key field type
OFFICECODE
. For the Creation of technical key fields, leave the default values. Close the window.From the Output category of steps, add an Update step.
Double-click on the step, select the connection to the
sampledata
database, and typeOFFICES
as the Target table.In the first grid, add rows with the text
OFFICECODE
both under Table field and under Stream field1. As Comparator choose =. This way, you will update the rows whereOFFICECODE
is equal to the office code in your stream.In the lower grid, add a row and type
PHONE
both under Table field and Stream field. Add a second row and typePOSTALCODE
in both columns.Close the window.
It's time to save the transformation and run it to see what happens.
As you might guess, three new offices have been added, with primary keys
8
,9
, and10
. The results are as follows:
SELECT OFFICECODE , ADDRESSLINE1 , CITY , COUNTRY FROM OFFICES ORDER BY CAST(OFFICECODE AS UNSIGNED); +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ | OFFICECODE | ADDRESSLINE1 | CITY | COUNTRY | +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ | 1 | 100 Market Street | San Francisco | USA | | 10 | Cabildo 2127 | Buenos Aires | Argentina | | 2 | 1550 Court Place | Boston | USA | | 3 | 523 East 53rd Street | NYC | USA | | 4 | 43 Rue Jouffroy D'abbans | Paris | France | | 5 | 4-1 Kioicho | Tokyo | Japan | | 6 | 5-11 Wentworth Avenue | Sydney | Australia | | 7 | 25 Old Broad Street | London | UK | | 8 | Avenida Paulista 1330 | Sao Paulo | Brazil | | 9 | Rua Boa Vista, 51 | Sao Paulo | Brazil | +------------+--------------------------+---------------+-----------+ 10 rows in set (0.01 sec)
In many situations, before inserting data into a table you have to generate the primary key. If the primary key is a simple sequence or the maximum primary key plus one, you can generate it by using a Combination lookup/update step.
In the recipe, for each row in your file, with the Combination lookup/update step, you look for a record in the offices
table with the same values for address
, city
, and country
.
Because the offices are new, (there aren't offices in the table with the same combination of address
, city
, and country
values) the lookup fails. As a consequence, the step generates a key value as the maximum OFFICECODE
in the table, plus 1
. Then, it inserts a row with the generated primary key and the fields you typed in the grid.
Finally, the step adds the generated primary key value to the stream.
As a last task, we used that key to update the other fields coming into the file: POSTALCODE
and PHONE
.
The Combination lookup/update step is within the Data Warehouse category, because it is mainly used for loading junk dimension tables. But, as you could see, it can also be used in the particular situation where you have to generate a primary key.
In this recipe you generated the primary key as the maximum plus 1
, but, as you can see in the settings window, a database sequence can also be used instead.
Note
When you use the Combination lookup/update step for inserting, make sure that the columns that are not part of the list of key fields are nullable or have default values.
In the recipe the
Combination lookup/update step just inserted new rows. Now suppose that you have a row that existed in the table. In that case, the lookup would have succeeded and the step wouldn't have inserted a new row. Instead, it would just have returned the found OFFICECODE
. That field would have been added to the stream, ready to be used further in the transformation, for example, for updating other fields, as you did in the recipe, or for being used for inserting data in a related table.
There are tables where the primary key is not a database sequence nor a consecutive integer, but a column which is built based on a rule or pattern that depends on the keys already inserted. For example, imagine a table where the values for the primary key are A00001
, A00002
, and A00003
. In this case, you can guess the rule: putting an A
followed by a sequence. The next in the sequence would be A00004
. This seems too simple, but doing it in PDI is not trivial. This recipe will teach you how to load a table where a primary key has to be generated based on existing rows.
Suppose that you have to load author data into the book's
database. You have the main data for the authors, and you have to generate the primary key as in the previous example.
Run the script that creates and loads data into the books
database. You'll find it at http://packtpub.com/support. If the book's earlier example from this chapter has been run, the database and author data should already have been created.
Before proceeding, verify the current values for the primary keys in the table where you will insert data:
SELECT MAX(id_author) FROM authors; +----------------+ | MAX(id_author) | +----------------+ | A00009 | +----------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Perform the following steps to generate keys for inserted database records:
Create a transformation and create a connection to the book's database.
Use a Text file input step to read the
authors.txt
file.To generate the next primary key, you need to know the current maximum. So, use a Table Input step to get it. In this case, the following statement will give you that number:
SELECT CAST(MAX(RIGHT(id_author, 5)) AS UNSIGNED) max_id FROM authors
By using a Join Rows (Cartesian product) step, join both streams. Your transformation should look like the following:
Add an Add sequence step. Replace the default value
valuename
withdelta_value
. For the rest of the fields in the setting window, leave the default values.Add a Calculator step to build the keys. You do it by filling the setting window as shown:
In order to insert the rows, add a Table output step, double-click on it, and select the connection to the
books
database.As Target table type
authors
.Check the option Specify database fields.
Select the Database fields tab and fill the grid as follows:
Save and run the transformation.
Explore the
authors
table. You should see the new authors:SELECT * FROM authors ORDER BY id_author; +----------+-----------+-------------+-----------+----------+ | lastname | firstname | nationality | birthyear | id_author| +----------+-----------+-------------+-----------+----------+ | Larsson | Stieg | Swedish | 1954 | A00001 | | King | Stephen | American | 1947 | A00002 | | Hiaasen | Carl | American | 1953 | A00003 | | Handler | Chelsea | American | 1975 | A00004 | | Ingraham | Laura | American | 1964 | A00005 | | Ramsey | Dave | American | 1960 | A00006 | | Kiyosaki | Robert | American | 1947 | A00007 | | Rowling | Joanne | English | 1965 | A00008 | | Riordan | Rick | American | 1964 | A00009 | | Gilbert | Elizabeth | unknown | 1900 | A00010 | | Franzen | Jonathan | unknown | 1900 | A00011 | | Collins | Suzanne | unknown | 1900 | A00012 | | Blair | Tony | unknown | 1900 | A00013 | +----------+-----------+-------------+-----------+----------+ 13 rows in set (0.00 sec)
When you have to generate a primary key based on the existing primary keys, there is no direct way to do it in Kettle, unless the new primary key is simple to generate by adding one to the maximum. One possible solution is the one shown in the recipe—getting the last primary key in the table, combining it with your main stream, and using those two sources for generating the new primary keys. This is how it worked in this example.
First, by using a Table Input step, you found out the last primary key in the table. In fact, you got only the numeric part needed to build the new key. In this exercise, the value was 9
. With the Join Rows (Cartesian product) step, you added that value as a new column in your main stream.
Taking that number as a starting point, you needed to build the new primary keys as A00010
, A00011
, and so on. You did this by generating a sequence (1
, 2
, 3
, and so on), adding this sequence to the max_id
(that led to values 10
, 11
, 12
, and so on), and finally formatting the key with the use of the calculator.
Note that in the Calculator step, the first A+B
performs an arithmetic calculation. It adds the max_id
with the delta_value
sequence. Then it converts the result to a String
giving it the format with the mask 0000
. This led to the values 00010
, 00011
, and so on.
The second A+B
is a string concatenation. It concatenates the literal A
with the previously calculated ID.
Note that this approach works as long as you have a single user scenario. If you run multiple instances of the transformation, they can select the same maximum value and try to insert rows with the same PK leading to a primary key constraint violation.
Sometimes you might have to delete data from a table. If the operation to do it is simple, for example:
DELETE FROM LOG_TABLE WHERE VALID='N'
Or
DELETE FROM TMP_TABLE
You could simply execute it by using an SQL job entry or an Execute SQL script step. If you face the second of the above situations, you can even use a Truncate table job entry.
For more complex situations, you should use the Delete step. Let's suppose the following situation: you have a database with outdoor products. Each product belongs to a category: tools, tents, sleeping bags, and so on. Now you want to delete all the products for a given list of categories, where the price is less than or equal to $50.
In order to follow the recipe, you should download the material for this chapter: a script for creating and loading the database, and an Excel file with the list of categories involved.
After creating the outdoor database and loading data by running the script provided, explore the database before following the recipe. In particular, execute the following statement:
SELECT category , COUNT(*) quantity FROM products p JOIN categories c ON p.id_category=c.id_category WHERE price<=50 GROUP BY p.id_category; +---------------+----------+ | category | quantity | +---------------+----------+ | kitchen | 19 | | lights | 14 | | sleeping bags | 5 | | tents | 4 | | tools | 8 | +---------------+----------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec) SELECT category , COUNT(*) quantity FROM products p JOIN categories c ON p.id_category=c.id_category WHERE price>50 GROUP BY p.id_category; +---------------+----------+ | category | quantity | +---------------+----------+ | kitchen | 5 | | lights | 1 | | sleeping bags | 1 | | tents | 8 | | tools | 2 | +---------------+----------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
The highlighted lines belong to the products that you intend to delete.
Create a transformation.
The value to which you will compare the price before deleting will be stored as a named parameter. So right-click within the transformation and select Transformation settings. Switch to the Parameters tab and create a parameter named
MAX_PRICE
. Set the default value to50
.Drag to the canvas an Excel Input step to read the Excel file with the list of categories.
Drag to the canvas a Get Variables step to get the named variable as a field named
max_price
with typeNumber
.After that, add a Database lookup step. Configure it to get the
id_category
fields based on the category descriptions in the Excel file. So far, the transformation looks like the following:Select the Database lookup step and do a preview. You should see the following:
Finally, add a Delete step. You will find it under the Output category of steps.
Double-click on the Delete step, select the outdoor connection, and fill in the key grid as follows:
Save and run the transformation.
Explore the database. If you run the same statements that you ran before starting the recipe, you'll note that all products belonging to the categories in the Excel file with price less than or equal to $50 have been deleted. The following is what you will see:
SELECT category , COUNT(*) quantity FROM products p JOIN categories c ON p.id_category=c.id_category WHERE price<=50 GROUP BY p.id_category; +---------------+----------+ | category | quantity | +---------------+----------+ | kitchen | 19 | | lights | 14 | | sleeping bags | 5 | +---------------+----------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) SELECT category , COUNT(*) quantity FROM products p JOIN categories c ON p.id_category=c.id_category WHERE price>50 GROUP BY p.id_category; +---------------+----------+ | category | quantity | +---------------+----------+ | kitchen | 5 | | lights | 1 | | sleeping bags | 1 | | tents | 8 | | tools | 2 | +---------------+----------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
The Delete step allows you to delete rows in a table in a database based on certain conditions. In this case, you intended to delete rows from the table products
where the price was less than or equal to 50, and the category was in a list of categories, so the Delete step is the right choice. This is how it works:
PDI builds a prepared statement for the
DELETE
operation. Then, for each row in your stream, PDI binds the values of the row to the variables in the prepared statement.
Let's see it by example. In the transformation you built a stream where each row had a single category and the value for the price.
If you run the transformation with the log level Detailed and look at the log, you will see the statement that is executed:
DELETE FROM products WHERE price < ? AND id_category = ?
The WHERE
clause is built based on the conditions you entered in the Delete configuration window. For every row, the values of the fields you typed in the grid—max_price
and id_category
—are bound to the question marks in the prepared statement.
Note that the conditions in the Delete step are based on fields in the same table. In this case, as you were provided with category descriptions and the products
table that does not have the descriptions but the ID for the categories, you had to use an extra step to get that ID—a Database lookup.
Suppose that the first row in the Excel file had the value tents
. As the ID for the category tents
is 4
, the execution of the prepared statement with the values in this row has the same effect as the execution of the following SQL statement:
DELETE FROM products WHERE price < 50 AND id_category = 4
The Looking for values in a database table recipe in Chapter 6, Looking for Data
It's not uncommon that someone asks you to load a table that doesn't exist yet. The following are some use cases:
You could write a CREATE TABLE
statement from scratch and then create the transformation that loads the table, or you could do all that in an easier way from Spoon.
In this case, suppose that you received a file with data about countries and the languages spoken in those countries. You need to load the full content into a temporary table. The table doesn't exist and you have to create it based on the content of the file.
In order to follow the instructions, you will need the countries.xml
file available for downloads from the book's site.
Perform the following steps to create or alter a database table:
Create a transformation and create a connection to the database where you will save the data.
In order to read the
countries.xml
file, use a Get data from XML step. As Loop XPath type/world/country/language
.Fill the Fields grid as follows:
From the Output category, drag-and-drop a Table Output step into the transformation.
Create a hop from the Get data from XML step to this new step.
Double-click on the Table Output step and select the connection you just created.
Click on the SQL button. A window will appear with the following script:
CREATE TABLE countries_stage ( country TINYTEXT , capital TINYTEXT , language TINYTEXT , isofficial TINYTEXT ) ;
Because you know that
isofficial
is just a simple flag with valuesY
/N
, replaceisofficial TINYTEXT
withisofficial CHAR(1)
.After clicking on Execute, a window will show up telling that the statement has been executed, that is, the table has been created.
Save and run the transformation. All the information coming from the XML file is saved into the table just created.
PDI allows you to create or alter tables in your databases depending on the tasks implemented in your transformations or jobs. To understand what this is about, let's explain the previous example.
A Table Output step causes Kettle to execute an INSERT
statement against the database. The insert is made based on the data coming to the Table Output and the data you put in the Table Output configuration window, for example, the name of the table or the mapping of the fields.
When you click on the SQL button in the Table Output setting window, this is what happens: Kettle builds the statements needed to execute that insert successfully. As in this example, the table doesn't exist, and hence the statement generated by clicking on the button is a CREATE TABLE
statement.
When the window with the generated statement appeared, you executed it. This caused the table to be created, so you could safely run the transformation and insert into the new table the data coming from the file to the step.
The SQL button is present in several database-related steps. In all cases, its purpose is the same: to determine the statements to be executed in order to run the transformation successfully. In the recipe, the statement was a CREATE TABLE
, but there are other situations. The following are some examples:
If you use an Insert/Update step and fill the Update fields: grid with a field that doesn't exist, Kettle generates an
ALTER TABLE
statement in order to add that field as a new column in the table.If you use an Update step and use the names of columns that are not indexed in the The key(s) to look up the value(s): grid type, Kettle generates a
CREATE INDEX
statement.If you use a Dimension Lookup/Update step in order to load a slowly changing dimension, Kettle generates a
CREATE TABLE
statement including all the fields that are needed in order to keep that kind of dimension updated. Slowly changing dimensions are a data warehousing construct that stores historical data and keeps versions of the data in the same table.
You can execute the SQL as it is generated, you can modify it before executing it (as you did in the recipe), or you can just ignore it. Sometimes the SQL generated includes dropping a column just because the column exists in the table but is not used in the transformation. In that case you shouldn't execute it.
Finally, you must know that if you run the statement from outside Spoon, in order to see the changes inside the tool you either have to clear the cache by right-clicking on the database connection and selecting the Clear DB Cache option, or restart Spoon.
When you are developing with PDI, you know (or have the means to find out) if the tables you need exist or not, and if they have all the columns you will read or update. If they don't exist or don't meet your requirements, you can create or modify them, and then proceed. Assume the following scenarios:
You need to load some data into a temporary table. The table exists but you need to add some new columns to it before proceeding.
You have to load a dimension table. This task is part of a new requirement, so this table doesn't exist.
While you are creating the transformations and jobs, you have the chance to create or modify those tables. But, if these transformations and jobs are to be run in batch mode in a different environment, nobody will be there to do these verifications or create or modify the tables. You need to adapt your work so these things are done automatically.
Suppose that you need to do some calculations and store the results in a temporary table that will be used later in another process. As this is a new requirement, it is likely that the table doesn't exist in the target database. You can create a job that takes care of this.
Create a job, and add a Start job entry.
From the Conditions category, drag-and-drop a Table exists entry, an SQL entry from Scripting, and a DUMMY entry from General.
Link all the entries as shown:
Double-click on the Table exists entry, choose the
books
database connection, and as Table name typemy_tmp_table
.Double-click on the SQL entry, choose the same database connection, and in the SQL Script: type the following:
CREATE TABLE my_tmp_table ( CALC_1 NUMERIC(10,2), CALC_2 NUMERIC(10,2), CALC_3 NUMERIC(10,2) );
Save the job and run it.
The table
my_tmp_table
should have been created.Run the job again.
Nothing should happen.
The Table exists entry, as implied by its name, verifies if a table exists in your database. As with any job entry, this entry either succeeds or fails. If it fails, the job creates the table with an SQL entry. If it succeeds, the job does nothing.
The SQL entry is very useful, not only for creating tables as you did in the recipe, but also for executing very simple statements, as for example, setting a flag before or after running a transformation. Its main use, however, is executing DDL statements.
On the other side, in order to decide if it was necessary to create the table or not, you used a Table exists entry. In addition to this entry and before verifying the existence of the table, you could have used the Check Db connections. This entry allows you to see if the database is available.
Now, let's suppose the table exists, but it is an old version that doesn't have all the columns you need. In this case you can use an extra useful entry: Columns exist in a table. If you can detect that a column is not present, you can alter the table by adding that column, also with an SQL job entry.
PDI allows you to perform basic operations that modify the data in your tables, that is: insert, update, and delete records. For each of those operations you have at least one step that allows you to do the task. It may happen that you have to do one or another operation depending on the value of a field. That is possible with a rather unknown step named Synchronize after merge.
Suppose you have a database with books. You received a file with a list of books. In that list there are books you already have and there are books you don't have.
For the books you already have, you intend to update the prices.
Among the other books, you will insert in your database only those which have been published recently. You will recognize them because they have the text NEW
in the Comment field.
For this recipe, you will need the database which can be created and filled by running the script books_2.sql
. You also will need the file books_news.txt
that accompanies the material for this chapter.
As the recipe will modify the data in the database, before proceeding, explore the database to see what is inside. In particular, run the following statements and pay attention to the results:
SELECT count(*) FROM books; +----------+ | count(*) | +----------+ | 34 | +----------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) SELECT id_title, title, price FROM books WHERE author_id='A00001'; +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ | id_title | title | price | +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ | 123-400 | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | 37 | | 123-401 | The Girl who Played with Fire | 35.9 | | 123-402 | The Girl who Kicked the Hornett's Nest | 39 | +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) SELECT * FROM books WHERE title="Mockingjay"; Empty set (0.00 sec)
Create a new transformation and create a connection to the
books
database.Drop a Text file input step to the canvas and use the step to read the
books_news.txt
file. As separator, type|
. Read all fields asString
except the price that has to be read as aNumber
with0.00
as the Format.Do a preview to verify you have read the file properly. You should see the following:
Use a Split Fields step to split the name field into two:
firstname
andlastname
.Use a Database lookup step to look up in the
authors
table for an author that matches thefirstname
andlastname
fields. As the value for Values to return from the lookup table: addid_author
.Check the option Do not pass the row if the lookup fails and close the window.
From the Output category of steps drag-and-drop a Synchronize after merge step to the canvas and create a hop from the last step toward this one. Your transformation looks like the following:
Double-click on the step. For the Connection field, select the books connection. As Target table, type
books
.Fill the grids as shown:
Select the Advanced tab.
As Operation fieldname, select comment. As Insert when value equal, type
NEW
. As Update when value equal, typeIn Stock
. Leave the other fields blank.Close the window and save the transformation.
Then run the transformation.
Explore the database again. In particular, run for the second time the same statements you ran before doing the recipe. Now you will get the following:
SELECT count(*) FROM books; +----------+ | count(*) | +----------+ | 38 | +----------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) SELECT id_title, title, price FROM books WHERE author_id='A00001'; +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ | id_title | title | price | +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ | 123-400 | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | 34.98 | | 123-401 | The Girl who Played with Fire | 35.99 | | 123-402 | The Girl who Kicked the Hornett's Nest | 37.99 | +----------+----------------------------------------+-------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) SELECT * FROM books WHERE title="Mockingjay"; +----------+------------+-----------+-------+-------+ | id_title | title | id_author | price | genre | +----------+------------+-----------+-------+-------+ | 523-110 | Mockingjay | A00012 | 37.99 | Teens | +----------+------------+-----------+-------+-------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
The Synchronize after merge step allows you to insert, update, or delete rows in a table based on the value of a field in the stream. In the recipe, you used the Synchronize after merge step both for inserting the new books (for example, Mockingjay
) and for updating the prices for the books you already had (for example, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
).
In order to tell PDI whether to execute an insert or an update, you used the field comment
. Under the Advanced tab, you told PDI that it should insert the records where the comment was equal to NEW
, and update those where the comment was In Stock
.
Note that, because you didn't intend to delete rows, you left the Delete when value equal option blank. However, you could also have configured this option in the same way you configured the others. An example of that, could be deleting the books that will stop being published. If there are books that match the out of market criteria
, you could type out of market
in the Delete when value equal option and those books would be deleted.
The inserts and updates were made based on the fields you entered in the grids under the General tab, which work exactly as the grids in an Insert/Update or an Update step.
Let's see a little more about the step you used in this recipe.
The Synchronize after merge step is like an all-in-one step. It allows you to insert, update, and delete rows from a table all in a single step, based on a field present in the dataset. For each row, Kettle uses the value of that column to decide which of the three basic operations to execute. This happens as follows.
Suppose that the Operation fieldname is called op
and the values that should cause an insert
, update
, or delete
are NEW
, In Stock
, and Discontinued
respectively:
You may wonder what the name Synchronize after merge has to do with this, if you neither merged nor synchronized anything. The fact is that the step was named after the Merge Rows (diff) step, as those steps can perfectly be used together. The Merge Rows (diff) step has the ability to find differences between two streams, and those differences are used later to update a table by using a Synchronize after merge step.
Deleting data from a table
The Comparing two streams and generating differences recipe in Chapter 7, Understanding and Optimizing Data Flows
Sometimes, you have several databases with exactly the same structure serving different purposes. These are some situations:
A database for the information that is being updated daily and one or more databases for historical data.
A different database for each branch of your business.
A database for your sandbox, a second database for the staging area, and a third database fulfilling the production server purpose.
In any of those situations, it's likely that you need access to one or the other depending on certain conditions, or you may even have to access all of them one after the other. Not only that, the number of databases may not be fixed; it may change over time (for example, when a new branch is opened).
Suppose you face the second scenario: your company has several branches, and the sales for each branch are stored in a different database. The database structure is the same for all branches; the only difference is that each of them holds different data. Now you want to generate a file with the total sales for the current year in every branch.
Download the material for this recipe. You will find a sample file with database connections to three branches. It looks like the following:
branch,host,database 0001 (headquarters),localhost,sales2010 0002,183.43.2.33,sales 0003,233.22.1.97,sales
If you intend to run the transformation, modify the file so it points to real databases.
Perform the following steps to dynamically change database connections:
Create a transformation that uses a Text file input step that reads the file with the connection data.
Add a Copy rows to results step to the transformation. Create a hop going from Text file input to Copy rows to results.
Create a second transformation and define the following named parameters:
BRANCH
,HOST_NAME
, andDATABASE_NAME
. Named parameters can be created by right-clicking on the transformation and selecting Transformation settings. Switch to the Parameters tab and enter the named parameters.Create a database connection. Choose the proper Connection Type:, and fill the Settings data. Type a value for the Port Number:, the User Name:, and the Password fields. As Host Name: type
${HOST_NAME}
, and as Database Name: type${DATABASE_NAME}
.Use a Table Input step for getting the total sales from the database. Use the connection just defined.
Use a Text file output step for sending the sales summary to a text file. Don't forget to check the option Append under the Content tab of the setting window.
Create a job with two Transformation job entries, linked one after the other.
Use the first entry to call the first transformation you created and the second entry to call the second transformation. The job looks like the following:
Double-click on the second transformation entry, select the Advanced tab, and check the Copy previous results to parameters? and the Execute for every input row? checkboxes.
Select the Parameters tab and fill it as shown:
Save both transformations. Save the job and run it.
Open the generated text file. It should have one line with sales information for each database in the file with the list of databases.
If you have to connect to several databases, and you don't know in advance which or how many databases you will have to connect to, you can't rely on a connection with fixed values or variables defined in a single place, for example, in the kettle.properties
file (which is located in the Kettle home directory). In those situations, the best you could do is to define a connection with variables and set the values for the variables at runtime.
In the recipe, you created a text file with a summary sales line for each database in a list.
The transformation that wrote the sales line used a connection with variables defined as named parameters. This means that whoever calls the transformation has to provide the proper values.
The main job loops on the list of database connections. For each row in that list, it calls the transformation copying the values from the file to the parameters in the transformation. In other words, each time the transformation runs, the named parameters are instantiated with the values coming from the file.
In the recipe, you changed the host and the name of the database. You could have parameterized any of the values that made up a database connection, for example, the username and password.
Connecting to a database
The Executing part of a job once for every row in a dataset recipe in Chapter 8, Executing and Re-using Jobs and Transformations
A parent-child table is a table in which there is a self-referencing relationship. In other words, there is a hierarchical relationship among its rows. A typical example of this is a table with employees, in which one of the columns contains references to the employee that is above each employee in the hierarchy.
In this recipe you will load the parent-child table of the employees of Steel Wheels. The hierarchy of roles in Steel Wheels is as follows:
A sales representative reports to a sales manager
A sales manager reports to the vice-president
A vice-president reports to the president
The president is the highest level in the hierarchy. There is a single employee with this role
You will load all employees from a file. The following are the sample rows in that file:
EMPLOYEENUMBER|LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|EXTENSION|EMAIL|OFFICECODE|JOBTITLE|REP_TO 1002|Murphy|Diane|x5800|dmurphy@classicmodelcars.com |1|President| 1056|Patterson|Mary|x4611|mpatterso@classicmodelcars.com |1|VP Sales|dmurphy@classicmodelcars.com 1076|Firrelli|Jeff|x9273|jfirrelli@classicmodelcars.com |1|VP Marketing|dmurphy@classicmodelcars.com 1088|Patterson|William|x4871|wpatterson@classicmodelcars.com |6|Sales Manager (JAPAN, APAC)|mpatterso@classicmodelcars.com ...
As you can see, among the fields you have the e-mail of the employee who is above in the hierarchy. For example, Gerar Bondur
is a Sales Manager
, and reports to the employee with e-mail mpatterso@classicmodelcars.com
, that is, Mary Patterson
.
In order to run this recipe, either truncate the employees
table in Steel Wheels, or create the table employees
in a different database.
Create a transformation that inserts the record for the president who is first in the hierarchy and doesn't report to anyone. The transformation should read the file, filter the record with
JOBTITLE=President
, and insert the data into theemployees
table.Create another transformation to load the rest of the employees. Define a named parameter named
LEVEL
that will represent the role of the employees being loaded.Use a Text file input step to read the file of employees.
Use a Get Variables step to add the variable
LEVEL
as a new field namedlevel
.Use a Join rows step to merge the employee data with the level the transformation will be filtering on. Leave the condition field empty so that the level from the Get Variables step will be added to each record.
Add a Filter rows step to filter the employees to load based on their role. In order to do that, enter the following condition:
JOBTITLE REGEXP level
.Add a Database lookup step to find out the employee number of the employee who is one above in the hierarchy. In the upper grid, add a row with the condition
EMAIL = REP_TO
. Use the lower grid to get the fieldEMPLOYEENUMBER
and rename it toREPORTSTO
.Add a Dummy step to send employee records that do not have an employee record parent to. This step will act as an error handling step.
Add a Table Output step and use it to insert the records in the table
employees
. Your final transformation looks like the following:Finally, create a job to put everything together. Drag a START entry and four Transformation job entries to the work area. Link all of them in a row.
Use the first Transformation entry to execute the transformation that loads the president.
Double-click on the second Transformation entry and configure it to run the transformation that loads the other employees. Under the Parameters tab, add a parameter named
LEVEL
with valueVP.*
.Repeat step 12 for the third Transformation entry, but this time, type
.*Manager.*
as the value for theLEVEL
parameter.Repeat step 12 for the fourth Transformation entry, but this time, type
Sales Rep.*
as the value for theLEVEL
parameter.Save and run the job. The table should have all employees loaded, as you can see in the following query:
SELECT EMPLOYEENUMBER N , LASTNAME , REPORTSTO , JOBTITLE FROM employees; +------+-----------+-----------+----------------------------+ | N | LASTNAME | REPORTSTO | JOBTITLE | +------+-----------+-----------+----------------------------+ | 1002 | Murphy | NULL | President | | 1056 | Patterson | 1002 | VP Sales | | 1076 | Firrelli | 1002 | VP Marketing | | 1088 | Patterson | 1056 | Sales Manager (JAPAN, APAC)| | 1102 | Bondur | 1056 | Sale Manager (EMEA) | | 1143 | Bow | 1056 | Sales Manager (NA) | | 1165 | Jennings | 1143 | Sales Rep | | 1166 | Thompson | 1143 | Sales Rep | | 1188 | Firrelli | 1143 | Sales Rep | | ... | ... | ... | ... | +------+-----------+-----------+----------------------------+ 23 rows in set (0.00 sec)
If you have to load a table with parent-child relationships, loading all at once is not always feasible. Look at the sampledata
database. There is no physical foreign key from the REPORTSTO
column to the EMPLOYEENUMBER
column, but if the foreign key had existed, it would fail because of the foreign key constraint. Not only that; in this case loading all at once would be impossible because in the file you missed the ID of the parent employee loading all records needed for the REPORTSTO
column.
So, in this recipe there was one possible solution for loading the table. We loaded all employees, one role at a time, beginning with the president and followed by the roles below in the hierarchy. The transformation that loaded the other roles simply read the file, kept only the employees with the role being loaded, looked for the ID of the parent employee in the hierarchy, and inserted the records. For the roles you could have used fixed values, but you used regular expressions instead. In doing so, you avoided calling the transformation once for each different role. For example, for loading the vice-presidents you called the transformation once with the regular expression VP.*
which matched both VP Sales
and VP Marketing
.
While working with source database systems, developers have to remain constantly vigilant for new system changes as they happen. Utilizing the source metadata that can be found within the database system can help generate SQL statements that remain constantly up-to-date. This will allow for source data to be captured even if the rest of an ETL transformation fails due to the new changes.
In this recipe you will create a dynamic data extracting transformation that will extract data from the books
database created earlier in the chapter.
For this recipe you will need the database which can be created and filled by running the script books.sql
. This can be found in the code for this chapter.
As the recipe will read metadata from the books
database, before proceeding, explore the database's metadata repository to see what is inside. In particular, run these statements and pay attention to the results:
SELECT TABLE_NAME , TABLE_TYPE , ENGINE , VERSION , ROW_FORMAT , TABLE_ROWS , AVG_ROW_LENGTH , DATA_LENGTH FROM information_schema.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'books'; +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ | TABLE_NAME | TABLE_TYPE | ENGINE | VERSION | ROW_FORMAT | TABLE_ROWS | AVG_ROW_LENGTH | DATA_LENGTH | +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ | authors | BASE TABLE | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 13 | 1260 | 16384 | | books | BASE TABLE | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 34 | 481 | 16384 | +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ 2 rows in set (0.00 sec) SELECT TABLE_NAME , COLUMN_NAME , ORDINAL_POSITION , COLUMN_DEFAULT , IS_NULLABLE , DATA_TYPE FROM information_schema.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'books'; +--------------+-------------+------------------+----------------+-------------+-----------+ | TABLE_NAME | COLUMN_NAME | ORDINAL_POSITION | COLUMN_DEFAULT | IS_NULLABLE | DATA_TYPE | +--------------+-------------+------------------+----------------+-------------+-----------+ | authors | lastname | 1 | NULL | NO | tinytext | | authors | firstname | 2 | NULL | NO | tinytext | | authors | nationality | 3 | unknown | YES | varchar | | authors | birthyear | 4 | 1900 | YES | int | | authors | id_author | 5 | NULL | NO | char | | books | id_title | 1 | NULL | NO | char | | books | title | 2 | NULL | NO | tinytext | | books | id_author | 3 | NULL | NO | tinytext | | books | price | 4 | 0 | YES | double | | books | genre | 5 | unknown | YES | varchar | +--------------+-------------+------------------+----------------+-------------+-----------+ 10 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Note
The preceding statement is written with the MySQL syntax. Please review and fix it if needed if you are using a different DBMS.
Compare how the data in the information_schema
database matches the CREATE DDL
statements found in the books.sql
file. Notice how the same parameters in the statements used to create the tables translate into the TABLES
and COLUMNS
tables.
Create a new transformation and add a Table Input step that can connect to the
information_schema
database.Create a query that selects the
TABLE_NAME
andCOLUMN_NAME
columns from theCOLUMNS
table, making sure to filter only on thebooks TABLE_SCHEMA
.Add a constant value using the Add constants step found under the Transform category. The value should be named
grouper
with typeInteger
and value of1
. Create a hop from the Table Input step to the Add constants step:Add a Denormaliser step found under the Transform category. The Key field should be the grouper column created in the last step. The Group field should be
TABLE_NAME
. Fill in the Target fields: information like the following:Preview the Denormaliser step. For each table in the
books
database, you should see a record with a comma-separated list of column names.Now finish this transformation by adding a Copy rows to result step and create a hop from the Row denormaliser step to the Copy rows to result step.
Since we will be building a SQL query from these columns, the simplest way will be to use them as variables. Variables can not be used in the same transformation as they are set, plus we will have multiple sets of variables, so we need to create a sub job and a parent job. Sub jobs are jobs within other jobs. Let's continue building the transformations needed and then we will build the two jobs required to run this process.
Create a second transformation. Add a Table Input step that will use the variables we will be creating from the data in the first transformation. Be sure to select the Replace variables in script? checkbox. The query should look like the following:
SELECT ${column_list_par} FROM ${table_name_par}
Add a Text file output step. For the Filename field, point to a location where the database table extracts can be dumped to. The Filename can also use parameters. Use the
table_name_par
as the file's name. The Text file output step will store whatever data is in the stream without declaring any Fields, so leave the Fields tab empty.Create one last transformation that will use the Get rows from result step and load the variables
column_list_par
andtable_name_par
with the Set Variables step. The Set Variables step should be filled in like the following:Create a job. This will be the sub job that will take each record and execute a query. Bring over a START step, two Transformation steps, and a Success step. The first Transformation step should point to the transformation that sets the parameters used in the query. The second Transformation step should point to the transformation that uses the parameters and extracts the query output into a text file. This job should look similar to the following:
Create another job. This will be the parent job to the whole process. Bring over a START step, a Transformation step, a Job step, and a Success step. The Transformation step should point to the transformation that is extracting data from the
information_schema
database. The Job step will be pointing to the job we created previously. Make sure that the Execute for every input row? checkbox is checked under the Advanced tab for the job. Your final job should look similar to the following:Now execute the parent job. There should be a number of text files with an output equal to the number of tables in the
books
database.
Most databases have a metadata repository that details tables and columns. This can be used to build dynamic queries to extract data for further processing. In this instance, once the books
database was created, the database application stored the metadata inside the information_schema
database. We then queried that database and used a Row denormaliser step to merge the column details into a single field so that our query would execute properly.
Getting data from a database by providing parameters
Getting data from a database by running a query built at runtime
Performing repetitive database design tasks from PDI
The Executing part of a job once for every row in a dataset recipe in Chapter 8, Executing and Re-using Jobs and Transformations
While we have cautioned that database design tasks should not normally be performed using PDI, sometimes there are certain tasks that are very repetitive and it can save a lot of time by creating a simple transformation to execute such tasks. For instance, maybe there are some new auditing columns that need to be added to all the tables of a given database. With PDI, and using a database's metadata repository, it is very straightforward to add the columns.
In this recipe we will be creating a transformation that will read a list of tables from the books
database in the database's metadata repository and build dynamic queries for each table.
For this recipe you will need the database which can be created and filled by running the script books.sql
. This can be found in the code for this chapter.
As the recipe will read metadata from the books
database, before proceeding, explore the database's metadata repository to see what is inside. In particular, run the following statement to see what tables are available in the books
database:
SELECT TABLE_NAME , TABLE_TYPE , ENGINE , VERSION , ROW_FORMAT , TABLE_ROWS , AVG_ROW_LENGTH , DATA_LENGTH FROM information_schema.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'books'; +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ | TABLE_NAME | TABLE_TYPE | ENGINE | VERSION | ROW_FORMAT | TABLE_ROWS | AVG_ROW_LENGTH | DATA_LENGTH | +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ | authors | BASE TABLE | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 13 | 1260 | 16384 | | books | BASE TABLE | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 34 | 481 | 16384 | +--------------+------------+--------+---------+------------+------------+----------------+-------------+ 2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Create a transformation. Add a Table Input step that reads the
TABLE_NAME
from theTABLES
table from MySQL'sinformation_schema
database.From the Scripting category, add an Execute SQL script step. Check the option Execute for each row? and add
TABLE_NAME
to the Parameters: section. For the SQL script to execute, use the following:ALTER TABLE ? ADD COLUMN create_date DATETIME DEFAULT '1900-01-01 00:00:00', ADD COLUMN update_date TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
Create a hop between the Table Input and Execute SQL script steps. Save and run the transformation. When completed, check the tables in the
books
database. All of them should now have acreate_date
and anupdate_date
column added.
Using a database's metadata repository is a very powerful and effective way to know the structure of a given source database. With this transformation we took advantage of that by reading out a list of all the tables from the books
database and ran a variable-based query that added two columns to each table based on the table name.
Try adding additional filters to specify certain tables from the books
database. MySQL's information_schema
database also has a table that details the columns of each table (aptly named COLUMNS
). For larger databases, you may want to filter just a subset of tables based on given columns or types.
Getting data from a database by running a query built at runtime
The Executing part of a job once for every row in a dataset recipe in Chapter 8, Executing and Re-using Jobs and Transformations
Building SQL queries based on database metadata