This guide will help you learn how to update records in a table, e.g. overwrite only the entries that have been changed.

Configuration

To update a table, you need to open the output database connector and switch it to the Update mode during configuring the connector's properties. You can do this when the list of the source data fields is being displayed.

After you switched the table to the Update mode, you also need to choose the primary key by selecting the field(-s). It is the very field which indicates what data is to be updated. If the destination table contains the entries with primary keys equal to the primary keys of the source table, then the input records with such enties will be updated.

For instance, if you have an ID, Name, Email, and Phone, you can set the record to be checked by ID and Name (or just ID) and then, if these are identical, Apatar will only update the Email and Phone.

Please note that you need to transfer the whole record to update the table properly.

There is also another option while configuring the update mode, "Clear the selected table before any data written". If you choose it, then all your old data will be removed.

Example

Let's now explore how data can be transferred using different modes. In the example below, the source table contains recent updates, and the target table is the destination that should represent the final view of the data.

Source table:

Target table:

Transformation in the Insert mode:

(The records from the source table were added to the target table regardless of where they existed there before or not.)

Transformation in the Update mode:

(The ABC record was updated, as it exists in both the source and target tables. The Joomla record was added, as it hadn't existed in the target table.)

Transformation in the Synchronization mode:

(The first record was updated, the IBM record was deleted, and the Joomla contact was added.)