InterBase PLANalyzer

Introduction

I wrote InterBase PLANalyzer because no other tool gave me accurate and easy-to-understand information which allowed me to write optimal SQL statements for InterBase, quickly.

InterBase PLANalyzer allows developers to easily understand the query optimization PLANs which InterBase uses to execute SQL statements by presenting them in graphical form. Additionally, it provides useful information on indices used by the queries at the click of a mouse, and delivers the most accurate read statistics available anywhere.

The Help for InterBase PLANalyzer is an extensive course in understanding and optimizing InterBase SQL and metadata.

Release Notes

Version 1.2.1

Download version 1.2.1

• Version 1.2.1 fixes a bug displaying online help that was introduced in 1.2.
• InterBase PLANalyzer now supports InterBase versions 5.6 through 2007.
• You can print the SQL, the PLAN tree, and the reads chart. Select the appropriate tab and choose File->Print.
• Several PLAN parser bugs fixed. Handling of SQL Dialect 3 DBs improved.
• The connect dialog now displays the last DB you opened by default, if you choose to remember DB names.
• The user interface has been tidied up and XP themes are now supported. Also, IB PLANalyzer now stores your selected options in the Application Data directory (the actual location varies depending upon your operating system) instead of the directory containing the EXE. This means that each Windows user gets their own settings, and you don't have to be an administrator to run the program.
• The record count of the result set from a SELECT statement is displayed in the status bar.
• I'm no longer buffering the results for the grid on the SQL tab in a TClientDataset. This eliminated a few bugs, some of them significant, which were caused by that component. If you're using an older version of InterBase (prior to IB 7) the grid will stop displaying after about five minutes or so to prevent long-running transactions. With IB7+ the application will do a commit retaining from time to time to achieve the same goal while keeping the grid active.
• Many other small bug fixes.

Version 1.1

Download version 1.1.

• IB PLANalyzer now fully supports InterBase versions 5.6 through 7.
• Support has been added for canceling long-running queries when remotely connected to an InterBase 6.5 (or higher) server. This option is disabled when IB PLANalyzer connects to an earlier version of InterBase or making local connections. This option require running queries in a background thread and can be disabled in the Options dialog.
• It is now possible to cancel fetching of large result sets, for all versions of InterBase.
• The SQL editor now does syntax highlighting. No attempt has been made to closely conform to IB server versions, however -- you'll still see IB 6 keywords highlighted when connecting to a 5.6 server, etc. The current cursor position is shown in the status bar.
• It's now possible to select a character set when connecting to a DB. The character set and ROLE are now stored in the application's INI file (if you choose to store username and password information).
• A couple bugs in the PLAN Parser have been fixed, and a feature has been added to guard against infinite recursion in the parser. Delimited indices are now handled correctly. InterBase 7 correctly supports delimited identifiers in PLAN expressions, so IB PLANalyzer does, too. Error cases resulting in infinite recursion will now produce an error message instead of overflowing the call stack and crashing the application. :) The parser should be slightly faster now.
• Many other small enhancements, tweaks, and bug fixes. The connect dialog is now sizeable (width-wise), for one thing, so that you can see your long DB paths. You can sort the results grid by clicking on column headers. Hold shift to sort on multiple columns. Midas.dll is now statically linked into the application, so you don't have to be a system administrator to install IB PLANalyzer anymore.
• This help file now uses PNG images (since the old image format is dying). Users of obsolete browsers (archaic versions of IE and Netscape) will need to upgrade. Any modern web browser already supports PNGs.

Version 1.01

Download version 1.01.

Major update to the Help files.

Version 1.0

Initial Release