Setting Database Node Options

You can use the options on the Data tab of the Database source node dialog box to gain access to a database and read data from the selected table.

Mode. Select Table to connect to a table using the dialog box controls.

Select SQL Query to query the database selected below using SQL. See the topic Querying the Database for more information.

Data source. For both Table and SQL Query modes, you can enter a name in the Data Source field or select Add new database connection from the drop-down list.

The following options are used to connect to a database and select a table using the dialog box:

Table name. If you know the name of the table you would like to access, enter it in the Table Name field. Otherwise, click the Select button to open a dialog box listing the available tables.

Quote table and column names. Specify whether you want table and column names to be enclosed in quotation marks when queries are sent to the database (if, for example, they contain spaces or punctuation).

• The As needed option will quote table and field names only if they include nonstandard characters. Nonstandard characters include non-ASCII characters, space characters, and any non-alphanumeric character other than a full stop (.).
• Select Always if you want all table and field names quoted.
• Select Never if you never want table and field names quoted.

Strip lead and trail spaces. Select options for discarding leading and trailing spaces in strings.

Note. Comparisons between strings that do and do not use SQL pushback may generate different results where trailing spaces exist.

Reading empty strings from Oracle. When reading from or writing to an Oracle database, be aware that, unlike IBM® SPSS® Modeler  and unlike most other databases, Oracle treats and stores empty string values as equivalent to null values. This means that the same data extracted from an Oracle database may behave differently than when extracted from a file or another database, and the data may return different results.