Virtual views

If you need to monitor the result set of a certain SQL statement that you run regularly, use a virtual view. Virtual view is an IDE virtual object that lets you have the result set available in the Database Explorer. Virtual view is not defined in the database code, and its data is not stored in the database.

For a virtual view, apart from SELECT queries, you can also use statements like show processlist for MySQL or exec sp_who2 for Microsoft SQL Server.

For example, to have a list of current database connections for a PostgreSQL database, create a virtual view with the following query:

The virtual view with the result set of your query will be available in the Database Explorer as a virtual object.

The SQL statement of virtual view is stored in external-data-<data_source_name>.xml. You can select another name for the XML file and other place to store this file. To change or see the path to the XML document, open data source settings by pressing Control+Alt+Shift+S, click the Options tab and see the Virtual objects and attributes field.

Virtual views can be seen in the Database Explorer. You can see a reference on node and object icons in the Data sources and their elements chapter of Database Explorer topic.

Create a virtual view

1. In the Database Explorer ( View | Tool Windows | Database Explorer) , expand the data source tree until the nodes of schemas.

2. Right-click the schema node and select New | Virtual View.

3. In the dialog that opens, enter the name of your virtual view in the Name field.

4. Type your SQL statement in the Query field.

5. Click OK.

6. If the Save external data for <data_source_name> dialog opens, specify the directory for external-data-<data_source_name>.xml file and click Save.