Converting Custom Database Tables to Unicode

If you're upgrading to Exo Business 2019.3,  you must convert custom database tables, triggers, views, and routines to Unicode. To do that, you must set up an exclusion file before running the database update.

Before You Begin

You must create these text files and save them in the Exo Business Exe folder:

• CUSTOM_TRIGGERS.LST

• CUSTOM_ROUTINES.LST

• CUSTOM_VIEWS.LST

• CUSTOM_TABLES.LST

The files specify which database triggers, routines, views, and tables to convert. Or, you can specify which elements to exclude from the conversion process.

Note: Ensure that the file names are spelled correctly. If they aren’t, the database update process ignores the files.

Each item that you need to convert must be on its own line in a file. So, if you need to convert a dozen custom database triggers, the file CUSTOM_TRIGGERS.LST must contain 12 lines.

WARNING: Be careful when setting up the .LST files in EAP#2 as you can inadvertently exclude tables — for example, tables required by Exo Business — when creating the files. You should review the files and run tests on a copy of your database before doing the actual conversion. This will not be the case by Pilot release as any standard Objects placed in an .LST file will be ignored.

Using Wildcards

You can specify database elements to convert to Unicode with these wildcards:

• * - specifies all characters

• ? - specifies a single character

In a text file, can add those characters anywhere in the name of a trigger, routine, view, or table.

For example, if you have a set of custom triggers whose names start with X_DR_ACCT, you can use add this to the CUSTOM_TRIGGERS.LST file to convert all triggers whose name starts with that text:

X_DR_ACCT*

Note: If the database updater can’t find a trigger, routine, view, or table specified in a .LST file, it ignores what’s missing and continues with the update.

Converting Custom Tables

The file CUSTOM_TABLES.LST works differently from the other files that you set up for the conversion. You can use wildcards with table names — for example, * to convert all tables, or CLIENT* to convert all tables whose names start with CLIENT.

You can also add the name of a column after the name of a table. Just put a comma after name of the table, followed by the name of the column. For example:

CLIENT,STOCKCODE

To convert all database tables that contain the STOCKCODE column, add this to the file CUSTOM_TABLES.LST:

*,STOCKCODE

You can add a dash (-) in front of the name of a table to exclude it from a conversion. For example:

-CLIENT*,STOCK*

That excludes from the conversion all columns whose names start with STOCK in database tables whose names start with CLIENT. However, the rest of the columns in the CLIENT database tables are converted.

You can also add a plus sign (+) in front of the name of a table to explicitly include it in the conversion. For example:

+MYOBJECT*