In message <5.1.0.14.2.20021104203230.03bf0ab0@...>, Helen
Borrie <helebor@...> writes

>At 10:06 AM 04-11-02 +0100, you wrote:
>>In message <NBBBJKLIEJPCMJJOFDNPMENAEIAA.alan@...>, Alan
>>McDonald <alan@...> writes
>> >you need stored procedures
>> >i doubt it's too complicated for stored procedures
>>
>>trust me, it is... there are a lot of conditions, and the Delphi
>>component written to check them is B I G.
>
>As a Delphi programmer, I can imagine the B L O A T you have had to put
>into a data-tidying component to make it do a task which would be
>economical and, by comparison, simple to do on the server in one or a suite
>of stored procedures.

I know what you are saying, and I have often read postings from people
who want to do 'x' because they have always done 'x'... but this is
different - well, I think it is, anyway (:->

>>The procedure is a 'file tidy' which deletes certain records under
>>certain, changing, conditions.
>
>Sounds like a job for Mr Trigger.

Mr Trigger wouldn't be very helpful, since what is changing is a set of
management decisions, with no relevance to anything in any table. It is
almost like saying, "I have decided never to deal with clients in
Tunbridge Wells, or who have Scottish sounding names, or who are AOL
users". There are currently about 60 of these rules, changing every two
or three days, and it's very easy to add a line to the Delphi component
"If email address ends in aol.com then test fails, get ready to delete",
and very controllable.

>>I don't have a problem with the time taken, it runs overnight, but I
>>still can't figure out how to delete single records from the file which
>>do not meet the criteria.
>
>You don't mean "file", do you?

Well, er, no... (:->

>DELETE FROM aTable
>where not (set of conditions)

In my case, DELETE FROM aTable where ID = :ThisRecordThatIJustDecidedIDi
dntWant

...but I can't nail down the technique for that, and the Delphi books I
read don't seem very helpful in the case of DELETE. Insert and Update
are covered nicely within my Delphi TUpdateSQL component.

>
>heLen

--
Pete Clark