In less than a month, we are going to release a completely new product – Manta Checker for Teradata. Therefore, it is the best time now to publish some details about what you can look forward to. First, every common.

In less than a month, we are going to release a completely new productManta Checker for Teradata. Therefore, it is the best time now to publish some details about what you can look forward to.
First, every common rule template you already know from Manta Checker for Informatica PowerCenter, such as RegExp or Report rule, is also available for Teradata scripts. How is it possible when a Teradata script is not an XML file? Our parser creates an abstract syntax tree (AST) structure from your Teradata script, which can be accessed in the same manner as an XML file. For example, you can check whether all table references in the script are fully qualified. How can you create a new rule if this AST is not visible? In addition to a precise documentation of its structure, there is a new scenario which lets you print an AST from your script.
Second, it is possible not only to validate Teradata scripts, but also to transform them. We deliver a lot of very useful rules. Some of them are quite complex, such as a rule that unifies alias usage (alias names are generated according to table or column names), or a rule that fully qualifies tables and columns according to the database dictionary. There are also a lot of rules based on transformation rule templates, such as case unification of keywords. For example, one of these rules transforms every occurrence of keyword sel by keyword SELECT. You can use these templates to easily create your own script transformations, such as adding or removing new statements or comments. When the script is successfully validated and transformed, it is also possible to pretty-print it according to our standard methodology, with configurable options.
An example of a script transformation using these rules: case unification of keywords, alias name unification, full qualification of tables, case correction of object names according to the database dictionary, and transformation of number references in order by.

sel a.contact_id, a.contact_name, a.contact_group From contact a
order BY 3;
SELECT C.Contact_ID, C.Contact_Name, C.Contact_Group
FROM Datamart.Contact C
ORDER BY C.Contact_Group;

Third, we have a great solution for those who want to develop more complex rules that cannot be created via common rule templates. We will publish the interfaces for both validation and transformation rules for Teradata as well as for Informatica PowerCenter checker. You can just implement one of them to create any custom rule in Java, and then you can easily deploy it to the Manta Checker application and use it as other rule templates via the web interface. In case of Teradata, you will have full access to the AST, and in case of Informatica PowerCenter, we provide a simple model which you can easily browse its objects with.
If you want to be among the first customers to try these great features, contact us and we will send you the trial version as soon as it is available. For others, there will be a new demo application on our site later on.
Lukáš
Lukáš is a head of Manta development. Do you have any questions for Lukáš? Post them in the comments.

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