9. Check & Compare

9.1 Bin Compare

The Check and Compare tool is used to compare either 2 or more bins, or to compare 2 or more database files.

When the Check & Compare icon is selected in the sidebar, the following pane will appear:

The first tool in the pane is Bin Compare. This tool is used to compare common columns in 2 or more bins.

To use this tool, select bin compare, and the following screen will appear:

Click the button labelled Select Bin 1 and the following screen will appear:

The files on this screen are those that have already been added to the project. Select the first file for comparison by clicking its icon. The file name will now appear in Bin 1 box.

Repeat this process to add a second file for comparison.

Below the Bin compare pane is a pane where you can add ID Fields to the comparable files. By default, Name is chosen however, there is the ability to add one more. 

This can be achieved by clicking the + button.

The selectable options are:

When you have selected the required ID Fields, click the Next button at the bottom of the Bin Compare pane.

If the bins are identical, Altera will show you this by displaying a notification outlined in green:

Altera will also show the compared Bins in the workspace, showing the identically compared metadata entries:

If the compared data is not identical, Altera will show a similar screen. However, this time the non-identical metadata is shown in a notification box, this time with a red outline: 

The non-identical metadata will be shown in a yellow box in the workspace:

Use the check boxes underneath the comparison pane to show different aspects of the comparison. There are four options, these being:

• Show only mismatching rows
• Show only matching rows
• Show only matching columns
• Show only conflicting columns

If necessary, Altera can compile a report from the compared Bins. Hit the Report button in the lower left-hand corner of the workspace to bring up the report dialog.

The report can be generated in either a *.PDF (Adobe Acrobat) or a *.CSV (comma separated value) file. 

When saving to a PDF file, a dialogue will pop up asking you what to call the file, any tags you wish to add and where you wish to save the file.

When you have saved the *.PDF file, you can open it in Acrobat Reader (available free online), and view the report:

When creating a CSV, you can choose which separator to use. These are:

In order to view the CSV file, you will need to open it in a program that can parse a CSV file such as Microsoft Excel.

Note: If you open it in a notes type editor or a word processor, you will see a lot of text separated by commas.

9.2 Check Database

The Check DB tool is used to check a Bin against a Database file. To use the Check DB tool, click the button and the following pane will appear:

Click the Select Bin button to select a Bin that has already been opened in the project. Select the Bin to be compared from the list:

When you have selected the Bin to be compared, the name of that Bin will appear in the Select Bin area.

Click the Select DB button and select the database for comparison. If a database has been opened previously in the project, its name will appear in the list:

If the database is not there, select Load from File. A window will pop up, allowing you to navigate to the database file.

Note: The database files are in a *.CSV (comma separated values) file.

When the Bin file and database files have been added to the Check DB tool, the grid below will be populated with columns from the database. To the right of these columns is a drop-down menu, allowing you to choose which fields these columns are matched to. By default, the drop-down menus will be the same as the column names. 

When you have added the database and the Bin file, click the next button. The following will be displayed:

Note: If there is an error with the look up, an error message will be displayed in the bottom right-hand corner. In the example below, none of the compared columns had an ID: