FAQS

1. I have two variable ports V1 and V2; V2 is calculated based on V1. What will be the value of V2 for the first time, if the order of ports evaluation is V2 and V1? The PowerCenter Server does not set the initial value for variables to NULL. Instead, the PowerCenter Server uses the following guidelines to set initial values for variables: Zero for numeric ports Empty strings for string ports,1/01/1753 for Date/Time ports. 2. I have 50,000 rows in my flat file source and I want 40000 rows to go to target skipping initial 10000 rows? There is an option no of initial rows to skip in advanced properties of source definition which we can set. 3. The maximum value an informatica sequence generator can generate is 2147483647(end value), what if we want to generate sequence value larger than 2147483647? We have to lookup the max sequence value from the target and use sequence generator value to add with the max value looked up.we have to check the reset option in sequence generator. 4. I have a simple pass through mapping with one source and a target directly mapped how will you insert a new record and update existing record? Enable the options in session properties treat source rows as-update and in session target properties-update else insert. 5. How to send alternative rows to target? Initialize a transformation variable value with 1 V1=1 V2=V1+1 Output port=mod (v2, 2) =0 and than use a filter. 6. I have a scenario where in i want my session to fail if my condition fails ex-salary>2000? We can use abort function and also error function with fail on error set to 1. 7. Why do we call a sorter transformation active when it only sorts the data?

SELECT DISTINCT option in sorter transformation which removes duplicate rows. 8. How to remove duplicate rows from flat file sources? SELECT DISTINCT option in sorter transformation and also by using group by port in Aggregator and Rank transformation. 9. Why there is PRE/POST SQL in both source and target? Both Source and Target can belong to different databases. 10. Scenario Source

Col1 Col2 Col3

10 Target 20 30

Col4
40

Col
10 20 30 40

Pivoting columns into rows Use normalizer, connect all the input ports to normalizer by setting occurs as 4 and connect output port to target. 11. What is Target Load Order in Designer? In the Designer, you can set the order in which the Informatica Server sends records to various target definitions in a mapping. This feature is crucial if you want to maintain referential integrity when inserting, deleting, or updating records in tables that have the primary key and foreign key constraints applied to them. The Informatica Server writes data to all the targets connected to the same Source Qualifier or Normalizer simultaneously, to maximize performance.

12. I have two sources with data having column length of varchar2 (40) and Varchar2 (100) respectively, if target column is varchar2 (50) than how does informatica handles this situation? The varchar2 (100) data will be truncated to varchar2 (50).
13.

What are shortcuts, and what is advantage?

Shortcuts allow you to use metadata across folders without making copies, ensuring uniform metadata. A shortcut inherits all properties of the object to which it points. Once you create a shortcut, you can configure the shortcut name and description. When the object the Shortcut references changes, the shortcut inherits those changes. By using a shortcut instead of a copy, you ensure each use of the shortcut exactly matches the original object. For example, if you have a shortcut to a target definition, and you add a column to the definition, the shortcut automatically inherits the additional column. Shortcuts allow you to reuse an object without creating multiple objects in the repository. For example, you use a source definition in ten mappings in ten different folders. Instead of creating 10 copies of the same source definition, one in each folder, you can create 10 shortcuts to the original source definition. You can create shortcuts to objects in shared folders. If you try to create a shortcut to a non-shared folder, the Designer creates a copy of the object instead. You can create shortcuts to the following repository objects: Source definitions Reusable transformations Mapplets Mappings Target definitions Business components 14. What will happen if u increase or decrease commit Interval? The Commit Interval setting determines the point at which the PowerCenter Server commits data to the target tables. Each time the PowerCenter Server commits, performance slows. Therefore, the smaller the commit interval, the more often the PowerCenter Server writes to the target database and the slower the overall performance. If you increase the commit interval, the number of times the PowerCenter Server commits decreases and performance improves. Note: When you increase the commit interval, consider the log file limits in the target database. If the commit interval is too high, the PowerCenter Server may fill the database log file and cause the session to fail. 15. How to update a target which is not having primary Key? To update a table that does not have any Keys we can perform SQL Override in the Target by specifying the WHERE conditions explicitly. 16. What are different ports in Informatica?

Input, Output, Variable, Return/Rank, Lookup and Master port. 17. What is the execution order of the ports in an expression? All ports are executed TOP TO BOTTOM in a serial fashion, but they are done in the following groups: All input ports are pushed values first. Then all variables are executed (top to bottom physical ordering in the expression). Last - all output expressions are executed to push values to output ports - again, top to bottom in physical ordering. 18. What happens in a database when a cached LOOKUP object is created (during a session)? The session generates a select statement with an Order by clause. Any time this is issued, the databases like Oracle and Sybase will select (read) all the data from the table in to the temporary database/space. Then the data will be sorted, and read in chunks back to Informatica server. This means, that hot-spot contention for a cached lookup will NOT be the table it just read from but it is the TEMP area in the database, it is not re-read until the next running session re-creates it. 19. Can you explain how "constraint based load ordering" works? It controls the order in which the target tables are committed to a relational database. It is of no use when sending information to a flat file. To construct the proper constraint order: links between the TARGET tables in Informatica need to be constructed. Simply turning on "constraint based load ordering" has no effect on the operation itself. Informatica does NOT read constraints from the database when this switch is turned on. Again, to take advantage of this switch, you must construct primary / foreign key relationships in the TARGET TABLES in the designer of Informatica. Creating primary / foreign key relationships is difficult - you are only allowed to link a single port (field) to a single table as a primary / foreign key. 20. Does it make a difference if I push all my ports (fields) through an expression, or push only the ports which are used in the expression? From the work that has been done - it doesn't make much of an impact on the overall speed of the map. 21. How do you really know that paging to disk is happening while you are using a lookup transformation? We have collect performance data first then see the counters parameter lookup_readtodisk if its greater than 0 then its read from disk. 22. Source table has 5 rows. Rank in rank transformation is set to 10. How many rows the rank transformation will output?
5 Ranks

You have created a lookup transformation for a certain condition which if true that Returns multiple rows .When you go to the target and see only one row has come And not all. Why is it so and how it can be corrected?
23.

Look up Transformation will return either the first, last match or an error in case of multiple matches. Use Joiner Transformation for this. 24. How to perform Lookup on two or more tables? Using Lookup override (SQL override in lookup).