Method of transferring data between relational database tables

• US 5,819,254 A
• Filed: 07/23/1996
• Issued: 10/06/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Wall Data, Inc. (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Kawai, Kenji
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALAM, SHAHID AL
• Application Number:
  US08/685,237
• Time in Patent Office: 805 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/102, 364/300, 395/500
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method of generating a computer system to determine a sequence of data transfers required to move data from one or more tables in a source database into a corresponding destination table in a relational database. A randomly ordered list of destination tables is created and sorted such that the destination tables are arranged in a least dependent order so that data is moved into tables before data is moved into tables that contain foreign keys.

Claims

1. A method of operating a computer system to determine a sequence in which data should be moved from a number of source tables to a number of destination tables in a relational database, comprising the steps of:

determining a number of pairs of database tables, each pair including at least one table in a source relational database and at least one table in a destination database; and

sorting the number of pairs of database tables by determining if each destination table has a foreign key to another destination table in the number of pairs of database tables and, if so,

arranging the number of pairs of database tables in a sequence so that tables having a foreign key are filled with data from a source table after the destination table to which the foreign key refers; and

repeating the steps of determining if each destination table has a foreign key to another destination table and arranging the sequence to ensure that the tables are in a least dependent order.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of detecting if the destination tables define a circular depending loop and if so, not declaring the columns in the destination tables as foreign keys.