This may seem like a silly question, but what does "Create copy of database ..." in EDBMgr used for?

I thought it would create a copy of the database in a new directory and copy all of the tables, views, data etc. to the new directory, and keep the old database in its old directory untouched.

But it is not doing that. It appears to be creating an alias for the database. If I make changes to the tables in the new database, the changes will appear in the old database. It seems to be sharing the same tables. Why?

TIA

Barry
EDB 2.13 B2 Unicode

Barry

>This may seem like a silly question, but what does "Create copy of database ..." in EDBMgr used for?
>
>I thought it would create a copy of the database in a new directory and copy all of the tables, views, data etc. to the new directory, and keep the old database in its old directory untouched.
>
>But it is not doing that. It appears to be creating an alias for the database. If I make changes to the tables in the new database, the changes will appear in the old database. It seems to be sharing the same tables. Why?

Until I looked at it just now I've never used it (I have used the clone session and that's useful). I suppose it can save a bit of work but my expectation was that it would copy everything under the database, but it doesn't

I can answer the Why question:

When you create a copy of the database you're allowed to alter the directory. If you don't then as you say you essentially get an alias. If you do then you get a new database. However, the new database pointing to a different directory does not contain any tables. To get those you'll have to reverse engineer the database.

but not the what is it for one.

Roy Lambert

Barry,

I use it to two purposes:
First, I will create the copy in a new folder so I can delete all the
development data so I have blank data that my customers receive. I have
to delete all the data in each table using a new SQL window but that is
quick and painless.

Second, I will create a copy in a new folder so that when I make
changes in the original database, I can use it against the copy (which
in this case would be the "original" which a client would have) when
reverse engineering an upgrade.

As Roy pointed out, you can copy them to new folders so they are
actually separate from each other. I actually copy the whole folder in
Windows and then rename the folder (i.e., Data-Blank, or Data-Upgrade).
I do this before I create the copy. This way all the tables are also
there when I create the copy.

Hope that helps clear up any confusion.

---------------------
Jan Ferguson [Team Elevate]


Barry wrote:

> This may seem like a silly question, but what does "Create copy of
> database ..." in EDBMgr used for?