Zionworx

Please can you provide advice on how to make a backup of the songs database in ZionWorx Version 2.5?

I imagine that this 'crucial' data must be stored somewhere and that it is also a good idea to back it up from time to time.

Many thanks for your help with this.

Kind regards
Tekman

If you look in the zionworx folder you'll see a sub folder caled Data

Example folder
C:\Program Files\ZionWorx\Data

Copy all the files in that folder to your backup.

The directory is easiliy found, but I see the following files are there:

C:\Program Files\ZionWorx\Data\
FTIndexTable.dat
FTIndexTable.id
FTIndexTable.inr
Keywords.in1
Keywords.in2
Keywords.rel
MainTable.blb
MainTable.dat
MainTable.id
MainTable.inr
SONGS.DBF
SONGS.DBT
Title1.ind
Title2.ind

I think the two "SONGS" files are remnants of version 2, so they are not included in the question. What I want to know is which files are the data files.
I would expect the "MainTable" files are the important song data ones.
"Keywords" is generated by the program to assist in realtime index searching and if not should be so that the backup set in not redundant and large.
Is it possible to have clarity on what each file does, or more useful a simple "Backup" or "Exort" songs option available from the menu. We have a number of PC using the software and to move huge files is not helpful.
An "update" option would also be great so that every song that has changed or been added to the database is imported into the current database, so that new or modified songs are not over written when updating a database.

Our Church machine which is connected via a smal network when it loads up does a batch file backup of the whole directory.

This then sits on the two machines we have.

If I ever need to do a manual backup I use a Flash disk key 512Mb and copy all the files over to this.

Then I always have a copy wherever I go.

Regards
Edd
Webmaster

To have to backup everything seems a little bit of duplication if not more than that.
I don't know the file configuration, so my statement may be redundant and reveal my ignorance.
The files used in the "Search by title" and "Search by keywords" are really index files generated by extracting the words out of the song "database" in increase the search speed.
To minimise the "data" needed to be backed there should be an option to manually update these index files - I expect them to be updated each time you add a song - but then at leat you shouldn't have backup these files as well.

Isn't duplication the idea behind backups.

Backup of everything s always a good idea.

This is why we always backuo everything in hese directorys.

Then you don't get into the issue of not having a complete backup as all the files are at the same date point.

Regards
Edd

Hi Edd

Surely the valuable data is the songs themselves?
The indexing is a special list of the unique words in all the songs linked to the songs themselves. It is a dependant duplication?
If I loose an index and I still have the songs database, I can generate an index again - if the functinoalty is made available.
However, If I loose the songs database I cannot use the indexes to generate a new song files.

Although a complete backup of everything in the directory is the most robust way to protect all the data - it is not very efficient.

Why am I on about this?
1. Firstly it should a be a a relatively small change in the coding to assign the indexing files to another directory (or sub directory).
2. In South Africa the internet lines are relatively slow, long transfers are often dropped and it can be costly. I was trying to get a new set of the database to a church plant in another region after all their sound and projection gear was stollen (Will most likely need to send spanned emails). To be able to send a smaller comprehensive file set is VERY helpful

Thanks for all you do.

AliBy wrote:Is it possible to have a more useful simple "Backup" or "Export" songs option available from the menu. We have a number of PC using the software and to move huge files is not helpful.

Yes we will add in an automatic database backup feature - that would be very useful...

Another way to backup the database folder quickly is just to make a ZIP file out of it - if you have WinZip installed then just right click on the 'Data' folder in Windows Explorer and select 'Add to ZIP file' (or similar) option. Then you can copy the single ZIP file around.

Also, don't forget that the new database in v2.5 is 'network-capable'. You can stick it on a network drive and share it between multiple copies of ZionWorx which exist on different machines.

Cheers,
Christian.

Using the same database of songs the "new format generates a significantly larger size file set. Perhaps only the "MainTable" files are the songs or even "MainTable.blb" is the unique database?

Old v2.0 Format _"SONGS"_ALL = 781 kB
New v2.5 Format _________ ALL = 3.16 Mb
New v2.5 Format __ "MainTable" = 1.17 Mb

you should backup the directory...

The data files zionworx needs them all to work.

It does not take a lot of space to actually backup the directory as a zip onto a Memory key or CD-ROM.

Regards
Edd

That's what I will do!
Thanks for the help,

Edd, you are missing Alistair's point: slow, unreliable, low bandwidth connection necessitates minimal data transfer whenever possible.

If I remember correctly, only the .dat and .rel files are crucial (the "true" database files), the others are generated.

You can try that, Alistair; if I am wrong, it just means that you will have to transfer the other files as well so no loss, but if I am right you potentially save a lot of transfer time.

I just checked the TurboDB online manual(s) (at http://www.turbodb.de/en/turbodb/vclmanual/index.html) and ... Oops! ...

The .blb file(s) will most likely be required as well. and maybe the .ind files. But the .id, .inr, .in1 and .in2 files are automatically generated so you don't need to backup or transfer these files.

Brief summary of file types (see http://www.turbodb.de/en/turbodb/vclmanual/database_files.html for details) -
dat - data
rel - relationships
blb - blob
ind - user defined index
id )
inr )
in0 ) - automatically generated indexes
in1 )
..etc)

So based on your figures above, leaving out the .id, inr, .in1, & .in2 files reduces the amount of data you need to back-up/transfer by 1,132KB.

Hope that helps.

I was making the point if you want to do a backup then the whole of the Data directory should be backed up.

Regard
Edd

I agree that ideally the whole of the "Data" directory should be backed-up, whether for back-up or for transfer, but when dealing with slow, unreliable links, you don't have an ideal situation and need to minimize the transfer size. ( - I am so glad that I rarely have to deal with such links anymore.)