ABAPERLS

a Collection of Tools for CM and Development with SQL Server

An SQL text by Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP.

AbaPerls is a collection of tools that I started developing in 1996 to meet the needs we had in the company I was working in to develop and deploy the database part of our product. They have evolved a lot since 1996 – and while I'm now an independent consultant, I'm still involved with that product, so it is likely that AbaPerls will continue to evolve.

Since these tools are general in nature, and address some problems that many SQL developers face - not the least the misfeature of deferred name resolution - I have always wanted to put them in the public domain. The tools are used on every-day basis at one my of clients, so they are certainly stable. Then again, since they are developed them to meet specific needs, there are certainly are some rough edges and some funny shortcuts.

As I said, they have been evolving since 1996, so AbaPerls is by now a quite rich and complex toolset. Here is a very brief overview of the main features:

• SourceSafe search and replace that ignore comments in source-code files.
• Loading SQL files:
  • Addtional error checks, such as references to non-existing tables, that SQL Server does not perform for you.
  • Automatic handling of DROP/CREATE and GRANT.
  • A preprocessor for SQL files.
  • No need to include WITH ENCRYPTION in source – AbaPerls can add it.
  • With AbaPerls you can mix collations on a server without conflicts in tempdb, as AbaPerls adds the necessary COLLATE clauses.
• Building an empty database from all SQL files in SourceSafe, or from a directory structure on disk.
• Generating update scripts to move a database from one SourceSafe label to one label to another.
• Ability to divide a database into "subsystems", that you can update independently.
• AbaPerls has its own system tables which permits you to keep an audit trail of when objects were loaded and update scripts were run.
• Generate INSERT-files from Excel workbooks.

AbaPerls presumes an environment of Windows, SQL Server (2000 or later) with Visual SourceSafe as your version-control system. Sites that do not use SQL Server, but use SourceSafe, may still be interested in the tools for search and replace in SourceSafe.

Just so you know it: AbaPerls is command-line only. There is no GUI.

To read more about AbaPerls, move on to the AbaPerls manual and read the introduction.

To download AbaPerls go to the download page. The current version of AbaPerls is L1.0.0091.

If you have any questions on AbaPerls, you can reach me on esquel@sommarskog.se.

AbaPerls is available under the Perl Artistic License.

This page was last updated 09-01-01 11:28