Microsoft SQL Server Writer Parameters

Database formats include a Database Connection parameter that defines and stores authentication information. For general information about sharing database connections, please see Using Database Connections.

Note that Database Connection parameters differ slightly, depending on context and/or database format.

Connection

From the Connection parameter in a database format, you can do one of the following:

  • Select an existing, previously defined connection. See the section Reusing a Database Connection in Using Database Connections
  • Select Add Database Connection to define a new connection. See database-specific parameters below, as well as the section Adding a Database Connection in a Workspace in Using Database Connections. The new connection can be made visible only to the current user, or can be shared among multiple users.

Connection Parameters (Add Database Connection dialog)

Server

The host name of the Microsoft SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. (It is not necessary to specify a port if a default configuration is used.)

If you have configured your Microsoft SQL Server database to use a non-standard port number, you can specify this port here.

The correct syntax is:

<Host>[\<Instance>][:<port>]

Database

To initiate a database connection, enter (or browse for) the database name.

Authentication

  • SQL Server Authentication – Select this option to proceed with specifying login credentials through the Username and Password parameters.
  • Windows Authentication – Select this option when connecting through a Windows user account, and the database can validate the account name and password using the Windows principal token in the operating system. Since the user account is retrieved by Windows, the Username and Password parameters are ignored.

Username and Password

Enter the username and password to access the service.

Encrypt Connection

Note   This parameter is not present in the Azure SQL Database reader and writer. The Azure SQL Database reader and writer will always request Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encrypted connections.

When selected, this parameter requests Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for the connection. If the server does not have a certificate trusted by the client machine, the connection will fail. Otherwise, data will be encrypted before traveling over the network. There are multiple ways to trust a server certificate on a client machine.

If this parameter is not selected, encryption behavior will be determined by encryption properties set for SQL Server Native Client, and for SQL Server.

Tip   When Encrypt Connection is selected, please provide a fully qualified Server name. For example, a server named safe-sql-server might have a fully qualified name of safe-sql-server.dev.safe. This fully qualified name should be an exact match for the server name on the trusted certificate.

Multi-Subnet Failover

Enable this option if you are connecting to a SQL Server that has been configured for High Availability (HA).

The time, in seconds, after which to terminate a query to the database if it has not yet returned a result.

If set to 0, there is no timeout. The default is 30.

Note  If this value is not set high enough, then the query will return the error Provider Error - Timeout Expired.

Case Conversion

These parameters change the case of all feature type and attribute names in the output.

  • UPPERCASE – Change all feature type names to uppercase text.
  • lowercase – Change all feature type names to lowercase text.
  • None – Do not make changes to any feature type names.
  • UPPERCASE – Change all attribute names to uppercase text.
  • lowercase – Change all attribute names to lowercase text.
  • None – Do not make changes to any attribute names.

Advanced

When set to Yes, this parameter changes the insert mode from feature-by-feature to batch. This can result in anywhere from six to ten times greater insertion speed. The compromise is reduced granularity in errors, with one invalid feature potentially causing the failure of a complete transaction.

Note  The speed of the bulk insert will increase with transaction size (fewer transactions = faster insert). Larger transaction sizes also mean that if a transaction fails, there will be more rows to re-insert.

In Microsoft Azure SQL Database Non-Spatial (MSSQL_AZURE), Bulk Insert is very important, as the insertion speed increase is on the order of 300x. However, for Bulk mode to work with Azure, the Server and Username parameters must be changed:

  • Server: tcp:SERVERNAME.database.windows.net
  • Username: USERNAME@SERVERNAME

The remaining parameters can be left unchanged.

Note   Bulk Insert (which is set to Yes by default) invalidates foreign key constraints in order to improve loading speed. You can set this parameter to No in the Navigator, or repair foreign key constraints after writing.

This setting enables the creation of tables without data features.

  • No - Tables are only created when receiving data features.
  • Yes - Tables are created without data features if possible.
Note  See Creating Tables Without Data Features for more information.

This parameter sets the number of features to be placed in each transaction before a transaction is committed to the database.

A default value of 500 is used as the transaction interval.

If this parameter is set to 0, then feature-based transactions are used. As each feature is processed by the writer, it is checked for an attribute called fme_db_transaction. The value of this attribute specifies whether the writer should commit or roll back the current transaction.

The value of the attribute can be one of COMMIT_BEFORE, COMMIT_AFTER, ROLLBACK_AFTER or IGNORE. If the fme_db_transaction attribute is not set in any features, then the entire write operation occurs in a single transaction.

This parameter allows for the execution of SQL statements before writing to a table. For example, it may be necessary to clean up a table before attempting to write to it. The statements will be executed only when the first feature arrives at the writer.

For detailed information about SQL functions, click the corresponding menu item in the SQL to Run editor helpClosed.

Available menu options depend on the format.

Multiple SQL commands can be delimited by a character specified using the FME_SQL_DELIMITER directive, embedded at the beginning of the SQL block. The single character following this directive will be used to split the SQL block into SQL statements, which will then be sent to the database for execution. Note: Include a space before the character.

For example:

FME_SQL_DELIMITER ;
DELETE FROM instructors ;
DELETE FROM people
WHERE LastName='Doe' AND FirstName='John'

Multiple delimiters are not allowed and the delimiter character will be stripped before being sent to the database.

Any errors occurring during the execution of these SQL statements will normally terminate the reader or writer (depending on where the SQL statement is executed) with an error. If the specified statement is preceded by a hyphen (“-”), such errors are ignored.

This parameter allows for the execution of SQL statements after a set of tables has been written. For example, it may be necessary to clean up a temporary view after creating it.

For detailed information about SQL functions, click the corresponding menu item in the SQL to Run editor helpClosed.

Available menu options depend on the format.

Multiple SQL commands can be delimited by a character specified using the FME_SQL_DELIMITER directive, embedded at the beginning of the SQL block. The single character following this directive will be used to split the SQL block into SQL statements, which will then be sent to the database for execution. Note: Include a space before the character.

For example:

FME_SQL_DELIMITER ;
DELETE FROM instructors ;
DELETE FROM people
WHERE LastName='Doe' AND FirstName='John'

Multiple delimiters are not allowed and the delimiter character will be stripped before being sent to the database.

Any errors occurring during the execution of these SQL statements will normally terminate the reader or writer (depending on where the SQL statement is executed) with an error. If the specified statement is preceded by a hyphen (“-”), such errors are ignored.

When writing geography (geodetic) data, polygons must be oriented according to the left-hand rule: outer boundaries must be counter-clockwise and inner boundaries must be clockwise.

The default for this parameter is Yes. If this parameter is set to No, FME will not automatically reorient polygons. You may want to set this parameter to No if your input polygons are known to have correct orientation.

Note  FME determines polygon orientation by projecting features onto a plane that does not wrap around the earth’s poles or 180-degree meridian, and does not take into account the curvature of the earth. Therefore, in some cases, FME may incorrectly (re)orient polygons.

If this parameter is set to Yes, feature geometry will be written from an aggregate. The default is No.

This aggregate must contain individual geometries (each part is independent from the others and is its own complete geometry). Each part geometry of the aggregate must have a name.

If the aggregate contains geometries with names that match the spatial columns of the table being written, the geometries will be written to the appropriate columns.

When using this feature, the geometry/geography columns cannot be specified.

Tags mssql_ado mssql_spatial