Online Documentation for Data Export for SQL Server
Configuration file format
The configuration (template) file used by Data Export for SQL Server is divided into several sections, each corresponding to a particular group of settings specified at different steps of the GUI application wizard.
[#General#]
This section stores information about the product name and its major version.
[#General#]
This section stores general information about the utility:
[Connection]
This section contains parameters for connecting to the server: Host, Login, Password (encrypted). These parameters are obligatory.
Note that parameter DBName used in previous versions is no more obligatory. You can set databases for each table and query separately in the [Databases] section.
[Tables]
This section contains the list of database tables to export in the following format:
<table key>=<table name>
e.g.
table1=Country
table2=Employee
This section may be empty.
[Queries]
This section contains the list of queries and their identifiers (used while loading queries into the wizard application) in the following format:
<query key>=<query identifier>
e.g.
query1=CountryQ
[SQL_<query key>]
Sections of this type contain query text for each query. The lines must be specified in the following format:
Item_0=<query line 1>
Item_1=<query line2>
etc.
See the example below:
[Queries]
query0=Query_0
[SQL_query0]
Item_0=select name, capital
Item_1=from countries
Item_2=where continent = 'South America'
This section may also be empty, but remember that if you do not specify any table or query, no data are exported.
[Files]
This section lists files for data export in the following format:
<table key>=<filename>
<query key>=<filename>
etc.
You can specify either full paths or relative paths, e.g.
table1=table1.xls
or
query1=C:\Exported data\query1.docx
Note that you must specify the file extension properly to receive data in the required format. Otherwise, extension .xls is taken by default.
[Databases]
This section allows you to specify a database for each table and query in the following format:
<table key>=<database name>
<query key>=<database name>
If you do not specify a database for a table or a query, the database name for this table or query is taken from the DBName parameter value of the [Connection] section.
[Templates]
This section specifies template files for each table or query. This template (*.exp) file is generated by the utility with the configuration (*.cfg) file and contains various export settings: export type, result filename, fields for export, number of records to export, specific Excel, RTF, HTML, or other options and more.
The section has the following format:
<table key>=<template filename>
<query key>=<template filename>
etc.
You can specify either full or relative file paths, e.g.
table1=template1_xls.exp
or
query_clients=D:\Templates\template2_rtf.exp
If you do not specify any file name in the [Files] section, it is taken from the template. If you specify neither file name, nor
template for table or query, then the <table name>.xls filename is taken by default for tables, or <query key>.xls for queries.
You can set arbitrary table or query keys in the [Tables], [Queries], [Files], [Databases] and [Templates] sections, but they MUST NOT contain spaces and they MUST be identical in different sections.
