How to age out subscribers accounts? - Database Discussion Boards

I have built a database that has some tables that use the money datatype. The pain in the arse in when I retrieve the data using SQL it always returns 4 decimal places.

Is there some way that I force SQL Server to only store 2 decimal places? Or is the something I can do in the SQL statement to truncate/round it to 2 decimal places? Either will do as I only store 2 decimal places worth of value in there anyway.

Michael Martin
Pegasystems Pty Ltd
Australia
martm@pegasystems.com
+61 413-004-018

"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace"
- Victor Stone

Hi
Is there a specific reason to use money? You could use numeric instead of money - this way you can define how many decimal places you need.

Do you need to make calculations after you retrieve the data? If not, you could use SELECT STR(<your field="">, 8, 2) FROM [...]

HTH

Regards,

Wanderley

Wanderley

thanks for the information looks like what I need. There isn't any reason to use money other than I was lazy, saw it and used it. I will try it as numeric, otherwise I will use the SELECT trick. Big Grin | :-D

Michael Martin
Pegasystems Pty Ltd
Australia
martm@pegasystems.com
+61 413-004-018

"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace"
- Victor Stone

I'm having a problem migrating from JET to MSDN 2000 in my application. I keep getting timeout errors and the following error message "cannot start more transactions on this session." Is this the result of the 5 connection limit on MSDE? I am only opening and using the program in one application that has multiple threads and opens the database with a connection for each thread that needs db access.

I think I found the problem. It was with my transactions. I called _pConnection->BeginTrans() inside a try / catch block. When an exception was raised because of a duplicate index, the m_pConnection->CommitTrans() was not being called and the transaction was still open. The next call (and all subsequent) call to BeginTrans would fail.

Can anyone tell me why recordset data from an Access table can't be displayed on a DataGrid control if the recordset cursor location is set to the server?

For a recordset to be bound to a grid, it must support bookmarks. A server side dynamic cursor on SQL Server does not support bookmarks. Try using a keyset cursor.

also see msdn article Q224192

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/1/92.ASP

I have a web classifieds system that I wrote for a client and I am having some trouble with the aging out of accounts. THis system is built with ASP and interfaces with MSSQL Server 7.0.

What happens is this, a person subscribes for a period of 90 days. They pay their fee and get the run of the system for 90 days. When the 90 days are up they are no longer allowed access. They can still log in, but they are only given access to the pay area so they can re-up their subscription. If they do not re-up then after a while their account goes away entirely.

So I have three states of user:
Non-Subscriber
Subscriber
Expired Subscriber

Non-subscribers become subscribers by entering their user info and paying, that is simple enough and it works fine.

Subscribers last for 90 days and then they become Expired Subscribers. (They get flagged in the database as expired)

Expired Subscribers last for another 30 days and then they go away. (They are deleted from the database)

So my question:
What is the most efficient way to test for the age of the accounts? (I am comfortable with databases, but I do not claim to be an expert so I am curious about what you guys think SQL wise)

Also, how would you guys get the system to run the check routine regularly? Say once a day. This is an ASP based system and it is hosted on a virtual hosting provider so I cannot just set up a scheduled job to run on the server like I normally would. I am going to have to find a tricky way to do it.

TIA!

Jason Jystad
Cito Technologies
www.citotech.net

>------------------------------------------------<
"Luckily," he went on, "you have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact," he added, brandishing the abused book, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' seems to be missing."
-- Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams)
>------------------------------------------------<

Hi
I just store the date of my last check in a simple text file. When a user logs in, I compare the dates. If my check is out of date, I run some stored procedures and update the text file.

Not the best solution ever, but it works and you don't have to update your db manually. Smile | :)

HTH

Regards,

Wanderley

Does running the stored procedures slow down the user's login at all? In other words, does the stored procedure have to finish before the asp continues? Or can I just trigger the stored procedure and then continue on with login and browsing, from the script perspective. I have done only limited stored procedure work, so fogive me if I am being dense.

I assume the db server would happily go off and run the stored proc while the user continued with his session, but I am unsure. If the user can continue browsing the site after logging in without any percieved delay, then this would seem to be the solution I am looking for.

Thanks
Jason

Jason Jystad
Cito Technologies
www.citotech.net

>------------------------------------------------<
"Luckily," he went on, "you have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact," he added, brandishing the abused book, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' seems to be missing."
-- Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams)
>------------------------------------------------<

Hi
Does running the stored procedures slow down the user's login at all?

In my case, no - it will depend on how many users you have and if your table is properly indexed. You can run some tests against your db to check how long does it take. Remember: the SP will run only once a day. Even if there's a little delay, it will be just for the first user of the day (and it could be you, if you wake up early Smile | :)

)

does the stored procedure have to finish before the asp continues?

I would say yes, because you may check your data against an out of date table, in case the SP is still running in background.

Regards,

Wanderley

Thanks for the help!

You gave me a couple of ideas I hadn't thought of before. That was what I needed, some fresh angles on the problem.

I wanted to do the check on session start, but I didn't want to slow down all the logins too much. It totally hadn't occured to me to flag myself with a file so it didn't always run. (Slaps self on forehead Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

) Sometimes you just get too involved in a problem and forget the simple solutions.

That coupled with moving the code into an SP should do the trick nicely.

Thanks again,

Jason Jystad
Cito Technologies
www.citotech.net

>------------------------------------------------<
"Luckily," he went on, "you have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact," he added, brandishing the abused book, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' seems to be missing."
-- Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams)
>------------------------------------------------<

What is the most efficient method of identifying duplicate records in my database? The duplication is likely to be in more than one field but within the same table. I don't want to enforce non-duplication using a primary key as the duplicates won't neccessarily need to be removed.

I thought of building up a list of the unique entries and then comparing each record against this but it seems like it would take an awful long time.

Cheers

James Spibey

Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Hi
Imagine you have a table with 2 fields (name and age):

1. To find duplicate names, use SELECT [name], COUNT(*) AS TOTAL FROM [table] GROUP BY [name] HAVING COUNT(*)>1

2. If you need to check both fields, just add [age] in SELECT and GROUP BY.

HTH

Regards,

Wanderley

ps: COUNT(*) will give you the number of times your field is duplicated

Thanks for your response - it's a great help.

How would I adjust the query to print out the duplicate records in grouped by the duplicate names ie

Name     Age    Shoe Size
Tom      12     6
Tom      12     7
Tom      12     8
Steve    26     12
Steve    26     13

(Excessive amount of sample data, I know)

Cheers

James Spibey

Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Hi
Do you want just a list of unique names or you need to know the duplicated ones? From your example:

Name     Age    Shoe Size
Tom      12     6
Tom      12     7
Tom      12     8
Steve    26     12
Steve    26     13
John     12     9

Do you want Tom, Steve and John (without duplicates) or Tom and Steve?

Regards,

Wanderley

Hi Wanderley - thanks for the help so far,

I want to find all the records which are duplicated. Those which are duplicated, I want to be able to list each of the duplicated records giving the user the option to pick which one is the correct one. All the records for which there is only one entry should not be displayed. Does this make sense?

So I want to display the information as displayed above. The database would probably also contain many records which were not duplicated which have not been displayed.

Can this be done?

James Spibey

Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Hi
Assuming that you're checking for duplicated names, you could do something like this:

1. Create a combobox and fill it with all duplicated names using SELECT [Name] FROM [your table] GROUP BY [Name] HAVING COUNT(*)>1

2. Create a listbox (or listview) and fill it with all records that match with the name selected on combobox using SELECT * FROM [your table] WHERE [Name] = 'selected name on combo'

This way, you'll have all duplicated names on the combobox - whenever you select a name, you can clear and fill the listbox and select the correct one.

Is it too confusing? Smile | :)

Please let me know if you still have problems.

Regards,

Wanderley

Thanks again Wanderley.

I understand what you said and it's pretty much what I thought in the first place. Thanks for your help.

James Spibey

Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Hi all...
How do i query the Sybase database to retrieve the "table structure" ?
i.e, if i want to have the results of the command
sp_help table_name
through a query, then what should i do ?

I'm new to Sybase.Could anybody help me out ?

Thanking u..
Renu

RS,
Software engrr ,
Pune - INDIA

Does anybody know, if it is possible to create a new dBase file using ADO? During my tests I had to learn that my provider does not support creation of this file. Is there any other provider? Sample code below:

Using the connection string to create an Access-file is no problem (see strcnn).

Thanks.

#include "stdafx.h"

#import "c:\winnt\system32\dllcache\\msadox.dll" no_namespace
#import "c:\winnt\system32\dllcache\\msado15.dll"

#include "iostream.h"
#include "stdio.h"
#include "conio.h"

void CreateDatabaseX(void);

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
printf("Start...\n");

HRESULT hr = S_OK;

hr = ::CoInitialize(NULL);

if(SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
CreateDatabaseX();

printf("\nPress any key to continue...");
getch();

::CoUninitialize();
}

return 0;
}

void CreateDatabaseX()
{
HRESULT hr = S_OK;

_CatalogPtr m_pCatalog = NULL;

//Set ActiveConnection of Catalog to this string
//_bstr_t strcnn("Provider=Microsoft.JET.OLEDB.4.0;"
// "Data source = c:\\Projekte_test\\create\\new.mdb");

_bstr_t strcnn("DSN=dBASE-files");

try
{
hr = m_pCatalog.CreateInstance(__uuidof (Catalog));

m_pCatalog->Create(strcnn);
}

catch(_com_error &e)
{
// Notify the user of errors if any.
_bstr_t bstrSource(e.Source());
_bstr_t bstrDescription(e.Description());

printf("\nSource\t\t: %s \nDescription\t: %s \n ",(LPCSTR)bstrSource,(LPCSTR)bstrDescription);
}

catch(...)
{
cout << "Error occured in include files...."<< endl;
}
}

I Suggest that you try and find a OLE DB provider for dbase or (xbase) before attempting to do this.

You are trying to execute functionality for dbase with the Access OLE DB provider.

There are various third parties that sell OLE DB Provider for xbase.

Hello!

You need to tell the Jet engine that you're using 'dBase 5.0' then you also need to install Borland BDE otherwise you will only be able to use the database in read-only.

I always use an .udl file to specify the connection (no change of the program if I need to change database).

Hope this will help!

// Mike

PS! I have not tried to create a dBase database only reading and writing to existing databases.

Hi,
I, also, am tasked with creating new dBase files using C# in the Visual Studio .NET and ADO .NET.
If you got yours working, would you please share your steps and solution with me, by email?

Thanks, Don.

Hi,
I'm Using an SQL statement "Select * from User_info order by user_name" i am getting the results in ascending order the problem is the Null values are arriving at the last when i want then to be first in acsending order the same applies with descending the appear first when i want them last can any one help me out with this\
Thanks in Advances Rose | [Rose]