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Alexander Liberov edited this page Oct 5, 2026 · 1 revision

ask: consumers

Which code reads or writes this table or column -- and what does the database itself do with it? One of the diagram questions of the ask verb -- see Diagrams and Charts for the model, the bundle and click-to-source.

Asking it

Planned engine verb -- drag-lint ask is not shipped yet. Today ask this question with the chart pipeline command below, or with Ask-Report.ps1 (see Charts and the IDE).

From RAD Studio: drag-lint > Reports > Who uses this table or column... -- type the name in the prompt (see IDE Menu Reference).

drag-lint ask --question consumers --target <TABLE | TABLE.COLUMN> --db <project.sqlite> --sql-db <sql-index.sqlite>

Today, ask it through the chart pipeline:

New-DiagramArtifact.ps1 -Question consumers -Target TABLE|TABLE.COLUMN -DbPath <Delphi project index> -SqlDbPath <SQL-script index>

You select

A database table (CUSTOMERS) or a column (CUSTOMERS.NAME).

The chart shows

  • Code side: the routines that WRITE it and the routines that READ it.
  • Database side: the triggers declared FOR the table (their bodies are scanned, including NEW. / OLD. column use), the stored procedures that name it (a SET TERM-aware body scan), and the indexes ON it.
  • Column form only: the form bindings whose data-source chain resolves to that table.

Read it carefully

  • The schema comes from SCRIPTS, not the live database. It is built from the MS*.SQL migration scripts, collapsed by name with the newest script winning. A table created outside those scripts is absent (measured: 5 live PDF_* tables), and a column may survive only in an older script.
  • Writers are certain, readers are mostly inferred. Writers come from the engine's sql_writes fact and are [certain]. Readers are mostly [inferred] from upper-case SQL-verb literals, because sql_reads misses SQL built with multi-line SQL.Add calls. Both counts are printed.
  • Positional reads are invisible. Fields[i] access names no column, so it cannot appear.
  • On an index without SQL facts (ORM3 CLIENT today), only [by name] literal matches appear.
  • A live-database snapshot (fb-snapshot) makes the database side richer; it is optional.

It stands on

The SQL-script index (tables, columns, triggers, procedures, indexes), the per-routine sql_reads / sql_writes facts that touches-tables uses in the other direction, SQL-verb string literals, and DFM data bindings for the column form.

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