Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations Rhinorhino on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

.PY? versus .MDL files

Status
Not open for further replies.
puppyquestion1

puppyquestion1

Programmer
Joined
Apr 23, 2003
Messages
43
Location
US
In Powerplay, I know you can save a model as either a .PY? or .MDL file. And I know that the .MDL version is ASCII that can be used for automating Transformer and can also be used to transfer cube models between versions of Transformer.

So, the question. Other than what I listed above, is there any operational advantage to using .MDL files vs. PY? files? Faster builds? Smaller cube file sizes?

Thanks.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
As far as I know .MDL are used as a back up, and the main difference between .PY? & .MDL is that the MDL does not stores security.

As the .PYI stores security, the model can be run in batch, otherwise the model would prompt for the password to the database and would be waiting it.

That's all. Hope this helps

Einyel
Functional&Technical Cognos Consultant
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Also PYx runs a bit quicker, as it does not have to be compiled. Speed differnce is very little however.

Bruce
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
mdl's do store security in them, they just won't embed a database password. The main differences between mdl's and pyi's are as follows:

Mdl's are smaller as they contain JUST the information required to build the cube. They are also the 'supported' way to upgrade from version to version as they are portable.

Pyi's can grow to be quite large as they are binary files and can become 'unfragmented' and tehy tend to store a lot of legacy information that you can no longer access. The upside to these is that they can store signon information and will run SLIGHTLY faster.

flex
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
An additional comment to Flex13.
When your model is developed using PYx, before using it in test or production, save it as a MDL file. Then open the MDL and save it back to PYx , it remove the fragments and the PYx size decrease.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks all for the replies. In summary of what I've read:

PYIs can fragment but have the ability to store signon information and run slightly faster runtime than MDLs. Fragmentation can be reversed by saving to MDL and then resaving as a PYIs.

MDLs are slightly smaller, slightly slower, don't fragment, can't store signon information but can be used when upgrading cube models from one version to another.

Thanks again. Maybe we need a poll of how many people use either PYI or MDLs regularly as their main storage format. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I always did the exact opposite of CP, so I guess either 1) I did not FTFM, or 2) different people have different needs. :-)

Another plus of MDL is that you can read the file directly in a text editor. I had to use PYx to use sign-ons & run unattended cube updates.

Bruce
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm with Bruce, and probably for the same reasons.
I use PYx for the regular builds, and then a save to MDL and then back to PYx to 'compress' large models that have levels which grow over time (document numbers).
With the signons, it also allows other (trusted) users to kick off cube builds when you're not around/available.
lex
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Correct, MDL's should be the backup/storage mechanism, where PY's should be the runtime models.

flex
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I create and edit the .mdl's (Cognos claims they're incorruptible, and so far none have, while plenty of .pyi's have been), then save as .pyi's, and put the database logon info into the pyi's, then save again, for the macros to run. I never do any real work (editing) on the pyi's, they absolutely get corrupted.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
And as I found today with a REPOS-E-NOMEM error on a pyi that'd grown to 290MB, it's extremely useful to have a mdl as a back-up.

With the data on the lowest level removed, the mdl was a svelte 6MB.

Had I just had a copy of the pyi, chances are I'd have had to create the model again from scratch.

lex
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It shows you need both types kicking around the hard drive.

Bruce
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

mbuonocore
  • Locked
  • Question Question
Seperate Files by Page
Replies
4
Views
277
mbuonocore
mbuonocore
giggles7840
  • Locked
  • Question Question
2 framework files into 1
Replies
1
Views
180
blom0344
blom0344
galaxy0815
  • Locked
  • Question Question
Cognos Macros - save .MCX files in different folder?
Replies
1
Views
196
drlex
drlex
c83user
  • Locked
  • Question Question
Union versus Aggregation
Replies
3
Views
185
blom0344
blom0344
qberta01
  • Locked
  • Question Question
Read List of Files in Directory
Replies
0
Views
118
qberta01
qberta01

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top