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Data Items Properties

Getting there

Databridge Servers > Client Managers > Settings > Customize > (select a data set) > Relational tab > (select a data item) > Properties

The customizable properties for a data item are organized in the following sections:

These properties are dependent on the data type, the length of the item, and several other factors so the properties will vary from item to item, as we only show properties that are applicable to the specific item.

Basic Properties

Name

Represents the value of the item_name column in the DATAITEMS Client control table for the item. You can rename an item by typing the new name in this input field. The name must conform to the database naming convention, cannot be a reserved word in the database, and also cannot be a duplicate of another column.

Item Number

This entry represents the value in the item_number column of the DATAITEMS Client Control table. It determines the position of the item in the DATAITEMS client control table. The "create table" statement used to create the table includes the column in this order. After a DMSII reorganization occurs, this may not match what is actually in the table, as new columns get added using an "alter table add column" statement that adds them to the end of the table. The order of items will affect stored procedures, as the order of the parameters must match what is in the control tables. If you renumber items you will need to run a Generate Scripts and a Refresh command for the data set to remedy this situation. The client number columns are in increments of 10 to make it easier to rearrange them by modifying the item number.

Tip

Do not renumber key items, as the client expects them to be at the start of the table.

Relational Info

This section contains information about the SQL type. The SQL type can be changed by using one of the options in the SQL type list box by selecting the down arrow. Select the desired item from the list. If the selected SQL type has a length or scale, the data type must have a value of greater than equal to the original value, as specifying a smaller value would result in data truncation.

Options

This section has two configurable properties as seen below:

Allow Nulls

This property gets its initial value from the configuration parameter allow_nulls, which only applies to items that are not keys. It corresponds to the DAOPT_Nulls_Allowed bit the da_options column of the DATAITEMS table entry. You can change this bit as long at the item is not a key. In the case of a MISER database where the, unless the parameter use_nullable_dates is set to True, keys that are MISER dates will allow nulls.

Change Control Characters to Blanks

This property gets its initial value from the configuration parameter convert_ctrl_char. It corresponds to the bit DAOPT_FixAlphaChar bit in the da_options column of the DATAITEMS table entry.

SQL Server Masking

This property, which only applies to the SQL Server client, allows you to apply data masking to the column by adding the appropriate specification to the column defintion in the DDL. The Databridge Administrative Console breaks this down into two components, which are the Masking Type and the Masking Parameters

Masking Type

The following masking types are defined:

  • no masking
  • default
  • email
  • random
  • partial

These are presented using a list-box from which you can select the desired type. The last two entries have parameters which are supplied in the Masking Parameters list box. The random function applies to numeric items, it has 2 parameters, which are the minimum and maximum value for the random numbers that will be displayed instead of the actual value for the column. The partial function applies to character data and has 3 parameters, the number of characters to show at the start of the data, the mask for intermediate characters in the data, and the number of characters at the end of the data that is shown. For example, you could enter a 0 character at the start and 4 at the end to show the rest of the data as asterisks.

Masking Parameters

The Administrative Console implements the parameters as an array of strings whose entries are defined in the configuration file and associates with an index value in the range 1 to 100. The masking_info column of DATAITEMS, which defines the masking function and the index of the corresponding parameter string, which does not include the parentheses. The format of the masking_info column (which is an int) is 0x00nn000m, where m is the masking function code and nn is the index into the masking table.

An example for this is a value of 0x00010003 formasking_info, which represents a masking type of 3, which is random masking, with its parameters represented by the masking_parameter[1] entry in the configuration file. This parameter could be "0,100" which would result in the masking function "random(1,100)" being used in defining the data mask for the column.

You can reuse masking_parameter entries as many times as needed. The index must be between 1 and 100. Refer to the SQL Server documentation for details on how data masking works.

This information is used to make the line for the column accountno in the DDL looks this this:

accountno varchar(16) masked with (function='partial(0,"************",4)') NULL,