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Browse In-DB Tool

The Browse In-DB tool lets you view your data at any point in an In-DB workflow.

Each Browse In-DB tool triggers a database query and can impact performance.

Why you would use this tool

Use the Browse In-DB tool as you build an In-DB workflow to ensure data is passing through the way you intend it to. It allows you to view results at any point in the In-DB workflow.

How to use this tool

The Browse In-DB tool will only accept connections from in-database tools with an in-database outgoing connection anchor.

Drag a Browse In-DB tool from the Tool Palette onto the workflow canvas.
Connect any other In-DB tool's output to the input of the Browse In-DB tool. The Browse In-DB tool accepts a single input and can only be connected to other In-DB tools.

There are a number of shortcuts to connect this tool:

Auto-connect: Drop the Browse In-DB tool in close proximity to another In-DB tool and it will connect automatically.
Right click menu: Right-click on the tool to add a Browse In-DB tool and choose "Add Browse After."
Hot key: Select the tool to add a browse to and hit Ctrl-Shift-B and a browse will be added.

You can do this to multiple tools. Select all tools to add a Browse to and apply the hot key, Ctrl-Shift-B, and a Browse will be added to all selected tools. If a tool has multiple outputs, a Browse will be added to each output.

Run the Workflow to see the results of the preceding tool.

Universal Options

Along the top of the Browse In-DB tool window are options for viewing the data and specifying the number of records to display.

Browse first: Specify the number of records to display in the Browse In-DB window when the workflow is run. This field defaults to 100 records. Entering 0 displays the maximum of 2 billion records.

Enable caching: The Browse In-DB tool will cache the number of records returned when the workflow is run. This option will default checked, but can be turned off. If the database connection or query (including the number of records to browse) does not change then the query will not be re-run, but instead the records that display in the window will be pulled from the cache.

Clear Cache: Click the Clear Cache button to clear the data from the cache.

Single View: One view of the data will display in the window.

Left/Right View: Two selected data views will display in the window side by side.

Top/Bottom View: Two selected data views will display in the window one on top of the other.

Data Statistics: The number of records, number of fields, and size of file on disk are displayed.

Number of records selected: The number of records selected in the table displays. Clicking the clears the selection.

New Window: Creates a new window to display the results. Since the data in the window remains constant, a new window can be created for multiple Browse In-DB tools and then used to compare results throughout the workflow.

Renaming a New Window: The window name defaults to the name + tool ID of the Browse In-DB tool and the window can be renamed to make it easier to keep track of multiple windows.

Select the Browse In-DB tool and click the Annotation icon in the Configuration window.
In the Name box, specify name to appear at the top of a new window.

The new window will float on top of the workflow. If a new window is minimized, it will display at the bottom of the Alteryx window and not on the task bar. There is no limit to how many new windows can be created for the workflow but the new windows will NOT be saved with the workflow.

The tool has a display limitation of 2 billion records. If there are more than 2 billion records in the data stream, there will be a message in the Data View statistics. All records will be written to the desired file type when exporting from the Browse.

Table View Options

The Table tab displays the data resulting from the upstream workflow process. The following options are supported in the Table view.

Number of fields displayed: The drop down arrow allows the user to select the fields to display. Click the to deselect all fields and the to select all fields.

Cell Viewer: Clicking the drop down exposes the Cell Viewer. The Cell Viewer will reveal all of the contents of a selected cell. Click the to display all white space or unseen characters in the cell.

Listed below are the different types of information that are displayed in the Cell Viewer:

Nothing Selected: When no cell is selected, the Cell Viewer will display the table schema.
Spatial Object Cell: When a Spatial Object's cell is selected all of the spatial information for that object will be displayed.
Report Snippet Cell: If a Report Snippet cell is selected, the PCXML code that makes up that snippet will be displayed.
Row Selection: If an entire row is selected, the Cell Viewer displays the total size, in bytes, of that record.
Data Anomalies: To aid in identifying anomalies in string data, cells which contain certain types of strings will show a red triangle in the upper right corner of the cell. Hovering the mouse over the cell will display a tool tip explaining the anomaly. Examples of some anomalies include:

Strings with leading or trailing spaces.
Strings with embedded tabs.
Strings with embedded new lines.
Long numbers rounded to 6 decimal places for display purposes.

Copying or exporting the cells from the Browse actually grabs the full length numbers. When the numbers are sent to a database, etc., the full number is used.

Selection Navigation: The Up and Down arrows allow the user to move through the Table view to their selected records.

To select rows, click on a record number, press CTRL, and click on another record number to add to the selection. Click and drag to select multiple records in succession. Selected records display highlighted in green.

Copy: Supports copying the data to the clipboard so that data can be pasted into another application. The copied data can also be pasted back into Alteryx. Alteryx will automatically put this data into a new Text Input Tool. The Copy function has several options:

All Records with Headers: All records in the table view are copied to the clipboard including the column headers.
All Records without Headers: All records in the table view are copied to the clipboard excluding the column headers.
Selected Records with Headers: Only selected records in the table view are copied to the clipboard including the column headers.
Selected Records without Headers: Only selected records in the table view are copied to the clipboard excluding the column headers.

Export: Supports writing out the contents of the data view into a new file. All supported Output file types are available for export.

Messages

The Results window issues messages when the database is being queried.

Browse In-DB tool: Running In-DB query.

Once the query has been run, the message states how long it took and the number of records returned. Clicking the link opens the data results as a .yxdb file in a separate window.

Browse In-DB tool: In-DB query completed in 4.2 seconds returning 1000000 records

If the query does not change then if the workflow is run again data will be pulled from the cache.

Browse In-DB tool: Records from previously cached data