Errors in new compare result sets tool

[Claus Pedersen]

The new tool for comparing two result sets is a handy new feature. Thanks to the developers for that.

But the user interface for starting comparing result sets is not very intuitive. I had to look in the manual (!) to see how it was started. Using Ctrl-click to start a tool is not very intuitive.

Request: Please add a right-click option when right-clicking on a tab: "Compare result sets" - much more user friendly.

Error 1: Columns can mis-aligned.

As user "hr" (the user formerly known as scott/tiger), I execute the following two selects:

SELECT t.employee_id emp, t.job_id job, t.manager_id mn, t.department_id dp, t.location_id loc, t.country_id c, t.first_name fnam, t.last_name lnam, CASE WHEN TRUNC(employee_id/2) = employee_id/2 THEN 0.9 ELSE 1 END * t.salary sal, t.department_name dn, t.job_title jobt, t.city, t.state_province sp, t.country_name ctryn, t.region_name regnam,
       t.employee_id emp, t.job_id job, t.manager_id mn, t.department_id dp, t.location_id loc, t.country_id c, t.first_name fnam, t.last_name lnam, t.salary sal, t.department_name dn, t.job_title jobt, t.city, t.state_province sp, t.country_name ctryn, t.region_name regnam
FROM emp_details_view t WHERE department_name = 'IT' ORDER BY t.employee_id;
SELECT t.employee_id emp, t.job_id job, t.manager_id mn, t.department_id dp, t.location_id loc, t.country_id c, t.first_name fnam, t.last_name lnam, ROUND(t.salary) sal, t.department_name dn, t.job_title jobt, t.city, t.state_province sp, t.country_name ctryn, t.region_name regnam,
       t.employee_id emp, t.job_id job, t.manager_id mn, t.department_id dp, t.location_id loc, t.country_id c, t.first_name fnam, t.last_name lnam, t.salary sal, t.department_name dn, t.job_title jobt, t.city, t.state_province sp, t.country_name ctryn, t.region_name regnam
FROM emp_details_view t ORDER BY CASE WHEN department_name = 'IT' THEN 1 ELSE 2 END, t.employee_id;

I mark them both and execute. Two tabs are shown. I Ctrl-click on the first tab and the data is shown in the same tab.
I press the "Compare 2 result sets" button to compare.
But because the length of the data is different in the two grids, the columns with the same names (and the differences) are not aligned underneath each other, e.g. the first column SAL or CTRYN, where there are differences in data. The further I scroll to the right, the worse it gets.

I now have to manually select 'Column width to header' to try to align the columns.
But only the first grid is changed. Grid number two is not.
I have to manually click on tab number two to select that tab and select 'Column width to header' again on that grid (back to normal tab view). The selection is already marked in bold, but this is obviously not the case. I select the bold selection again, and the column widths are changed.
I then Ctrl-click on the tabs again and press the "Compare 2 result sets" button to get the compare result view I wanted.

This a (too) long way to get a useful result.

When I press F8 to refresh the results, the grids are reset back to 'normal'. I have to Ctrl-click again and press the button to see my results.

Please correct so the columns are always aligned above each other in the two grids, preferably showing the full data and full column name at the same time (like "Column width to header and contents" is working now, but so the columns are always vertically aligned).

F8 to refresh must also keep the currently selected view.

Please also correct the following error/feature:
When selecting an alignment for a grid, the alignment for the other grids must not appear as having the same alignment. Each grid can have its own alignment and that must be reflected in the 'bold' currently selected alignment for each grid. This is a general error when having more than one result grid tab in PLD.

Error 2: Large grey area is shown above one of the result sets.

I have two result tabs. The second one is active. I right-click on the first tab. Nothing happens.
I Ctrl-click on the second tab. Now both grids are shown on the same page, but with a huge grey area above the first grid.

Phew, sorry for a rather lengthy post, but in my opinion, the compare data set tool still needs some fixing before it is ready for release.

Thumbs up to the developers

 

[Marco Kalter]

Thanks for your feedback. We'll check it out.

 

[Claus Pedersen]

It works much better in beta 6, but there a still some small glitches:

In an SQL window, I mark and execute the following two selects:

SELECT employee_id, salary AS sal,
department_name AS dn, job_title AS jobt, city, state_province AS sp
FROM emp_details_view
ORDER BY CASE WHEN department_name = 'IT' THEN 1 ELSE 2 END, employee_id;

SELECT employee_id, CASE WHEN TRUNC(employee_id/2) = employee_id/2 THEN 0.9 ELSE 1 END * salary AS salary,
NULL AS dn, job_title AS jobt, city, state_province AS sp FROM emp_details_view
WHERE department_name = 'IT' ORDER BY employee_id;

I Ctrl-click on the first tab to show them both and click 'Compare 2 result sets'.

The result is now much better than in beta 5. The columns are all aligned underneath each other.

But the width of the columns are apparently calculated based on data in the top grid (the one with 5 rows).
This results in that data like like Executive and Finance are visually truncated so only the first 4 letters can be seen. Also the column containing state_province is too narrow to show its full content.

Error: when I press on the small square with the dots to see the full text in the lower grid, nothing is shown?

Also, one could argue that a value of e.g. 9000 vs. 9000.00 and 4200 vs. 4200.00 in the SAL column (number(8,2)) should not be reported as different.
SQL will find that the values are the same ...
When comparing columns containing numbers, dates, and/or timestamp data, please use an appropriate number and date comparison (and not their string representation).

When pressing F8 to refresh data, the view is still reverted back to two single tab pages and no result set compare.

When I click in a column in the lower grid, the column info (e.g. "employee_id, number(6), mandatory") is not updated with the info for that column. It still shows the column info from the top grid.

 

[Marco Kalter]

We'll check it out.