Code View Window

Generating scripts from schema differences.

When in the Schema Viewer you select one or more of the highlighted schema items and use on them either of the "Show changes to ..." commands (Ctrl-Alt-LEFT | RIGHT), AdeptSQL Diff generates a difference script for the selected items and shows it in the "SQL Code View" popup window (shown below), ready to be sent to the server. Although the Code View window is not a full-featured SQL debugger (it can't step inside a stored procedure or display SQL variables), it does provide some convenient script execution commands you'd expect to see in one.

Choosing a target. 

The result of using the code window may be applied to either of the databases taking part in the comparison. You can choose the database in the "Target" combo box. Of course, usually it only makes sense to apply it to the database the script has been generated for, which is the initial choice in that combo box. 

If you open a script file in this window, there would be no default target, so you must choose one before you can do anything with that script.

Executing the script

With the following buttons you can control execution of a difference script:

Img	Keys (depending on key mapping)	Menu	Description
	F9	"Run"	Run the whole script from the beginning or from the current execution point ().
	Ctrl-Shift-F8	"Skip"	Skip to the next SQL statement without executing this one. May be convenient when there is an error in the SQL which you don't care to fix right now.
	F8	"Step"	Execute the current SQL statement. If there is no execution point yet, the command just sets the EP to the first statement - you have to "step" again to get that statement executed.
		"Stop"	Enabled only while the script is being executed (by the "Run" command). Makes the execution stop after finishing the current statement. It does not break the connection immediately, so if the server is doing some bulky query you may be stuck till it's done.

Executing a selection.  If you select part of the SQL, the Run command will only execute this selected part and then reset the selection.  Execution of selected SQL text does not interfere with the current execution point. E.g. you can step-through to some SQL, then select and execute a piece of code elsewhere in the script, then resume execution where it stopped.

The transaction control. The program remembers the position in the script where the transaction has started and returns the execution pointer there if the transaction gets rolled back due to an error. When a SQL statement such as {BEGIN | COMMIT | ROLLBACK} TRAN[SACTION] is executed, the program recognizes that and updates its state automatically.

You can also enter or leave a transaction manually, using the (Start), (Commit) or (Rollback) buttons on the Code Viewer's toolbar:

Img	Menu	Description
	"Transaction/Start"	Enters a transaction. The program passes BEGIN TRANS to the server and remembers the current execution point, so it can return there if the transaction fails.
	"Transaction/Commit"	Successfully finish the transaction. Passes COMMIT TRANS to the server and discards the stored return position.
	"Transaction/Rollback"	Passes ROLLBACK to the server and returns to the stored position in the script, so you can correct the errors and retry.

Note: named transactions and checkpoints are not supported. When the SQL parser sees one of those, it simply ignores any additional parameters. The command goes to the SQL server exactly as it is, but the program remains unaware of the transaction name. If you now try to press (Rollback), the program will issue a regular unnamed "ROLLBACK TRANS" and that will cause error on the server. This limitation should not present a problem, as we are dealing here with straightforward difference scripts where you can hardly expected any named transactions.

The gutter bar menu. In the gutter area of the editor, the first line of each SQL statement is marked with a tiny dot (). When you click on the dot, a menu pops up - see the snapshot.  Here you can select the whole statement, toggle breakpoint or specify the statement the execution will be resumed at.

The same commands are available from the right-click menu of the code editor itself  - the commands will be applied to the SQL statement the caret is (or the selection starts) within. In other words, if you place the caret anywhere between the beginning of the statement and the terminating "GO" then press F5, the breakpoint will appear at the beginning of the statement.