Equalize Objects

If you've objects in two repositories that have the same name but different Upgrade IDs, you may want to treat them as the same object.

Use the equalizerpds utility to give the objects in the repositories the same Upgrade ID. You can equalize objects as part of the merge process.

You can also use the Equalize Objects dialog, available from the Compare repositories dialog, to preview the repository after you run the equalizerpds utility.

This section contains the following topics:

About Equalizing Objects

You might need to equalize objects because Administration Tool tracks the history of each repository object using the Upgrade ID of the object.

The Upgrade ID is a unique identifier for each object.

Sometimes, the Upgrade ID can change because of user actions or during merge. When this occurs, and a subsequent comparison is done, the Administration Tool treats the new Upgrade ID as a new object, and the missing original Upgrade ID as a deleted object.

For example, assume you've two identical repositories. In one repository, delete a presentation column, then re-create it again. When you compare the two repositories using the Compare repositories dialog, there are two entries for the presentation column: one that shows the old object as deleted, and one that shows the new object as created. Without using the Compare repositories dialog, it's hard to tell that this action occurred, because the Administration Tool typically shows only the object name and properties, not the underlying Upgrade ID.

The Upgrade IDs aren't unique, in rare cases the repositories that you want to merge might contain the same Upgrade ID. Running the equalizerpds utility on the repositories corrects the duplicate Upgrade ID issue and prevents an error while performing the merge.

Run the equalizerpds utility on your repositories before merging them to equalize your changes. Equalizing any opposing changes such as a column that's been duplicated and then renamed, cleans up the underlying Upgrade IDs, and prevents unintended renaming during the merge.

When you equalize objects, you can lose track of object renames because legitimate object renames become different objects. Intentional renames you did in the repository might change to different Upgrade IDs, so subsequent merges erroneously treat the renamed object as a new object. To avoid the renaming and new object situation, enter the before and after names of intentionally renamed objects in a rename map file that you then pass to the utility. The equalizerpds utility uses the information in the file to ensure that the original IDs are used in the renamed current objects.

You can view the Upgrade ID for repository objects using the Query Repository dialog. See View the Upgrade ID for Repository Objects.

View the Upgrade ID for Repository Objects

You can view the Upgrade ID for repository objects using the Query Repository dialog. When you use this task, a new column showing the Upgrade IDs displays in the Results list.

The Upgrade ID isn' available as a column option unless you've selected Show Upgrade ID in Query Repository in the General tab of the Options dialog. See Set Administration Tool Options.

In the Administration Tool, open a repository in offline mode.
Select Tools, then select Query Repository.
In Query Repository, click Columns.
In Select columns, select Upgrade ID from the list or use Find to help locate the Upgrade ID.
Click Query.

Use the Equalize Objects Dialog

The Equalize Objects dialog provides a preview of what your repository looks like if you run the equalizerpds utility on it.

The Equalize Objects dialog provides a convenient way to compare changes related to objects that have the same name, but it doesn't persist any of the changes.

Using the Equalize Objects dialog can be a very slow process for larger repositories.

In the Administration Tool, open your repository in offline mode.
From the File menu, select Compare.
In the Select Original Repository dialog, click Repository from the submenu to select a binary repository file in Oracle BI repository file format, or select XML to select a set of MDS XML documents.
In the Open Offline dialog, enter the repository password and click OK.
In the Compare repositories dialog, click Equalize.
The Equalize Objects dialog shows a list of changes to consider objects with different Upgrade IDs to the same object. You can use the following options to model how the changes might get equalized:
- Click Automatic to automatically equalize changes related to objects that have the same name. The changes appear in the Equated table.
  
  If no changes can be automatically equalized, nothing appears in the table, and the OK button remains disabled.
- Select an object in the Deleted list, then select the equivalent object in the Created list and click Add or Add Plus to equate the objects. Add Plus adds the object along with its child objects to the Equated table, while Add simply adds the selected object. For example, if you select a Subject Area and click Add Plus, the underlying Presentation Tables and Presentation Columns are added as well.
  
  After you make a manual selection, the Automatic button is disabled.
- Select a row in the Equated table and select Remove or Remove All to remove objects from the Equated table. Remove All removes the object along with its child objects, while Remove simply removes the selected object
  
  The Automatic button is enabled after all manual selections are removed.
When you're finished modeling the changes, click OK. The changes appear in the Compare Repositories dialog, but the changes don't persist after you close the dialog.

Description of the illustration equalize.gif

Use the equalizerpds Utility

You can use the equalizerpds utility to equalize the Upgrade ID of objects in two separate repositories. If objects have the same Upgrade ID, they're considered to be the same object. The utility compares Upgrade IDs from the first repository (the original repository) with Upgrade IDs from the second repository (the modified repository). Then, the utility equalizes the Upgrade IDs of objects with the same name, using the Upgrade ID from the original repository.

The equalizerpds utility is available on both Windows and Linux systems. You can only use equalizerpds with binary repositories in Oracle BI repository file format.

Provide the full path names to your repository files, both the input files and the output file, if they're located in a different directory.

The location of the equalizerpds utility is:

BI_DOMAIN/bitools/bin

Syntax

The equalizerpds utility takes the following parameters:

equalizerpds [-B original_repository_password] -C original_repository_name
{-E modified_repository_password]|-G} -F modified_repository_name [-I input_UDML_script_name][-J rename_map_file]
[-O output_repository_name] [-R output_apply_result_file] [-U output_id_map_file][-Y equalStringSet]

Where:

G specifies to use the original repository password for the modified repository password.

rename_map_file is a text file containing a list of objects that were renamed and that you want to equalize. The format is a tab-separated file with the following columns:

TypeName     Name1     Name2

For example, to include a logical column in the map file that was renamed from Name1 to Name2, provide the following:

ATTRIBUTE "BusinessModel"."Table"."Name1" "BusinessModel"."Table"."Name2"

Don't cut and paste this example as the foundation for your own file, because the tab separators might not get copied properly. Create a new file with proper tabs.

See About Values for TypeName.

equalStringSet is a set of characters that you want to treat as equal.

The original_repository_password and modified_repository_password arguments are optional. If you don't provide these password arguments, you're prompted to enter the passwords when you run the command (password1 and password2). To minimize the risk of security breaches, Oracle recommends that you don't provide password arguments on the command line or in scripts. The password arguments are supported for backward compatibility only. For scripting purposes, you can pass the password through standard input.

For example:

equalizedrpds -C original.rpd -F modified.rpd -O modified_equalized.rpd
password1: my_original_rpd_password
password2: my_modified_rpd_password

In this example, original.rpd is compared with modified.rpd, the Upgrade IDs are equalized using the Upgrade IDs from original.rpd, and the final result is written to modified_equalized.rpd.

About Values for TypeName

Learn about the available object types and their corresponding values for TypeName.

The table shows the available object types and their corresponding values for TypeName.

Object Type	Value for TypeName
Database	DATABASE
Connection Pool	CONNECTION POOL
Physical Catalog	CATALOG
Physical Schema	SCHEMA
Physical Display Folder	PHYSICAL DISPLAY FOLDER
Physical Table	TABLE
Physical Key	TABLE KEY
Physical Foreign Key	FOREIGN KEY
Physical Column	COLUMN
Physical Complex Join	JOIN
Physical Hierarchy	HIERARCHY
Physical Level	PHYSICAL LEVEL
Cube Column	COLUMN
Cube Table	CUBE TABLE
LDAP Server	LDAP SERVER
Custom Authenticator	CUSTOM AUTHENTICATOR
Variable	VARIABLE
Application Role	SECURITY ROLE
User	USER
User Database Signon	USER DATABASE SIGNON
Project	PROJECT
Business Model	SUBJECT AREA
Logical Dimension	DIMENSION
Logical Level	LEVEL
Logical Display Folder	LOGICAL DISPLAY FOLDER
Logical Table	LOGICAL TABLE
Logical Source Folder	LOGICAL SOURCE FOLDER
Logical Table Source	LOGICAL TABLE SOURCE
Logical Column	ATTRIBUTE
Logical Join	ROLE RELATIONSHIP
Logical Key	LOGICAL KEY
Logical Foreign Key	LOGICAL FOREIGN KEY
Presentation Catalog	CATALOG FOLDER
Presentation Table	ENTITY FOLDER
Presentation Column	FOLDER ATTRIBUTE
Presentation Hierarchy	PRESENTATION HIERARCHY
Presentation Level	PRESENTATION LEVEL
Catalog Link	CATALOG LINK
Target Level	CUSTOMER TYPE
List Catalog	LIST CATALOG
Qualified Item	QUALIFIED ITEM
Qualifying Key	QUALIFYING KEY
Sampling Table	SAMPLING TABLE
Segmentation Catalog	SEGMENTATION CATALOG