Using the Data Browser

When importing table definitions from a data source, you can view the actual data in the tables using the Data Browser.

The Data Browser can be used when importing table definitions from the following sources:

• ODBC table
• UniVerse table
• Hashed (UniVerse) file
• Sequential file
• UniData® file
• Some types of supplementary stages

The Data Browser is opened by clicking the View Data... button on the Import Metadata dialog box. The Data Browser window appears.

The Data Browser uses the metadata defined in the data source. If there is no data, a Data source is empty message appears instead of the Data Browser.

The Data Browser grid has the following controls:

• You can select any row or column, or any cell with a row or column, and press CTRL-C to copy it.
• You can select the whole of a very wide row by selecting the first cell and then pressing SHIFT+END.
• If a cell contains multiple lines, you can double-click the cell to expand it. Single-click to shrink it again.

You can view a row containing a specific data item using the Find... button. The Find dialog box repositions the view to the row containing the data you are interested in. The search is started from the current row.

The Display... button opens the Column Display dialog box. It allows you to simplify the data displayed by the Data Browser by choosing to hide some of the columns. It also allows you to normalize multivalued data to provide a 1NF view in the Data Browser.

This dialog box lists all the columns in the display, and initially these are all selected. To hide a column, clear it.

The Normalize on drop-down list box allows you to select an association or an unassociated multivalued column on which to normalize the data. The default is Un-Normalized, and choosing Un-Normalized will display the data in NF² form with each row shown on a single line. Alternatively you can select Un-Normalize (formatted), which displays multivalued rows split over several lines.