AQueryx documentation
1. About AQueryx
AQueryx is interactive query tool for database developers and administrators. It simplifies the tasks of editing and running
SQL commands (which can be numerous and complicated), it supports multiple backends so that you can travel
across your databases and database engines while your front end stays the same and it provides the same range
of features. It provides easy to read, tabular display of the database queries and more.
2. Installation
AQueryx for Linux/GTK+ is distributed in the form of RedHat RPM archives. Just download the files and run rpm -i *rpm
to install. You will need GTK+ version 1.2 (tested with version 1.2.10) and libglade 0.16. These files are usually part of your
Linux distribution. You will need xtgcore2 library (tested with xtgcore 2.0.2) which can be downloadedd at xtgsystems.com
(at the same place as aqueryx iteself). You will also need simple_db drivers which enable AQueryx to connect to various
data sources. These drivers are free software and they can be downloaded from xtgsystems.com, too.
3. Running AQueryx
To run AQueryx, just type aqueryx on your console. The application will start up. The main application window
has several parts: menu bar, tool bar, SQL commands editor, tabular output window, command status window, status bar.
The menu bar contains all the commands which can be invoked (some of them have accelerators associated), the commands
itself will be covered later. The tool bar contains the buttons for some often-used actions, such as connecting to database,
disconnecting, commit, rollback and virtual work-space switching.
AQueryx features 3 virtual work spaces. The work space consists of the SQL query editor window plus tabular output
window. Each work space manages its own files and database connection. That way you can have several files and several
connections opened at once, even to different database engines. The work spaces can be easily switched from menu, tool bar
or through accelerators Alt-1/2/3. The active workspace is indicated on the status bar and on the toolbar (the button of
active workspace is hilighted but this feature may be overriden if you are using GTK themes).
4. Connecting to databases
There are two ways to connect to some database: using the connect command or using the connect dialog.
Using the connect command: Type in the connect command into the SQL editor window followed by space
and the connection string enclosed in double quotes and semi-colon. The connection string must be in the form of keyword
=value pairs, each pair (even the last one) must be terminated by semicolon. Do not forget to specify the driver to be used
to make a connection.
Examples:
connect "driver=simdb_ib6.so;db=localhost:/mnt/db/ibase/mon.gds;uid=sys;pwd=secret;";
connect "driver=simdb_mys.so;server=localhost;db=mysql;uid=sys;pwd=secret;";
Using the connect dialog: Click on the connect button on the toolbar (or choose connect action from menu), the
connect dialog is displayed. You can either recall saved connection (choose the name of the saved connection from the
"Saved Aliases" combo box) or you can configure a new one. In this case select the driver you wish to use from the
"Connect templates" combo box, the template for the selected driver appears below. Now fill in the values, you may even
delete the entries you wish not to use, just remember that each key-value pair must be ended with semicolon. When the connection
is configured, you may try to establish it by clicking on the "Connect" button. You will see in the status window whether the
connection was established or not and why. You may save the connection configuration for later use by typing in the name
of the connection into the "Alias name" field and then pressing the "Save" button. If the connection of this name already
exists, it is overwritten. Pressing "Close" will close the dialog.
To disconnect from the database, just press the "Disconnect" button on the toolbar (or choose this action from menu) or
type in the disconnect; command into the SQL editor. Remember that it is often needed to commit the transaction
before disconnecting to apply the changes.
5. Working with files
AQueryx supports all the usual file operations you may expect (new, open, save, save as) which may be invoked from
the "File" menu or through the keyboard shortcuts. The SQL editor supports syntax hilighting, clipboard operations,
multi-level undo/redo and search and replace including simple regular expressions (thanks to the
Scintilla editing
component which is used for the editor). All these actions can be invoked from "Edit" menu and accelerators.
There may be any number of SQL commands edited inside the editor, even the whole SQL scripts. The name and status
of the file is indicated on the window title frame.
6. Working with queries
AQueryx supports very simple and efficient query invocation mechanism. Just place the cursor anywhere inside your SQL
command (on any line your SQL command spans) and press Ctrl+Enter. The command is invoked instantly. Note that
all the commands must end with semicolon (no matter what the native separator of the backend is). If the command
is DDL (eg. create table) or DML (eg. insert into) command, it just gets executed and you can see the status of the command
(success or failure plus error message and timestamp of the command execution) in the command status window. You
can browse back through this window to see the status of previous commands. If the command is the select kind of command
(plus show and several similar ones) the result set is rendered into the tabular view window. The column names and data
types are set up according to the information from the result set itself. There is always fetched a limited number of rows,
which may or may not be the whole result set in order to save the time and memory if the result set is really big.
You may run many SQL commands (the scripts) by choosing "Run script from cursor" in the "Query" menu (or pressing F5).
Doing this, all the commands will be executed from the current one to the end of file or until the stop; command
is encountered. The result sets of the queries will not be displayed in the batch mode.
7. Registration
AQueryx is not free software. You may download it and give it a try for free but if you continue using it, you need to purchase
the valid license key. This key can be purchased online at xtgsystems.com. AQueryx is licensed on cross-platform basis,
so that you can use the same license key on any platform for which the application has been released. So if you have both
Windows and Linux, you register just once, download AQueryx for Linux plus AQueryx for Windows and use the same
key on the both platforms. Please note that the versions for different platforms may not be equivalent and that you
are encouraged to try them both before making a purchase.
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