Checking External References

Administrator User Guide

Data Integrity Checking : Using DICE : Checking External References

The elements in some types of DB have reference or reference array attributes which can point to elements in other DBs.

If the NOCHECK option is set, DICE does not cross-check any references to other DBs. It is recommended that this setting is always used for Transaction databases.

If CHECK is set, each referenced element is checked to see if it is a valid type. A non-fatal error message is produced for each invalid external reference found. The following tests are applied to each external DB to which reference is made:

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Does the referenced DB still exist?

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Is the referenced DB a valid type? For example, a reference attribute in a MODEL DB which points to a DRAFT DB must be illegal.

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Is the position pointed to within the limits of the referenced DB? Note that for a copied DB, DICE only checks that the reference is within the limits of the largest copy.

A non-fatal error message is produced for each invalid external reference found.

The REJECT option should normally only be used when you are certain that the database which is being checked should not contain any external references, for example, to a Dictionary database. If this command is used, any external reference found in the database will be reported as a fatal error and further checking will be abandoned.

If databases have been copied, the references will be checked against the first copy found.

If you specify the EXTERNAL CHECK option, you can specify a Preferred MDB. In this case, DICE will check external references to databases which are current within the given MDB, before checking other databases in the project. This option is mainly relevant when extracts are used, which means that there may be many databases with the same database number in the project.

The EXTERNAL REJECT option should normally be chosen only when you are certain that the DB which is being checked should not contain any external references. If this setting is used, any external reference found in the DB will be reported as a fatal error and further checking will be abandoned.