After your SQL query is processed, the Connect CDC Director sets the display width of each column of a multi-column result set to two characters plus the number of characters in the widest of that column’s individual values (including the column header). Consequently, each column in the SQL Results window is vertically aligned.
If the Use spaces between columns checkbox is selected, the Connect CDC Director populates the adjacent column values with space characters. If the checkbox is not selected, the Connect CDC Director uses non-displaying tabs instead of spaces.
In both cases, the screen display of the current result set looks the same.
Why use spaces?
-
Using spaces instead of tabs preserves the spacing of any previous result sets. If tabs are used, the tab settings are also applied to any result sets in the SQL Results window that may remain from earlier queries, and the new settings may disorder the earlier results.
-
The screen-display tab settings do not apply to printouts of the result sets. If you print a tabbed result set, a standard default width (approximately 8 characters) is applied to all columns, and wider column values spill into adjacent columns.
Why use tabs?
-
If your result set has a large number of rows, formatting with spaces requires extra time (roughly 30 seconds for 10,000 rows).
-
If you are saving your results to a file and later processing them programmatically, the tabs serve as unique column delimiters.