Poor Man's Flight

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PMF for Linux and Windows, new and shiny, shiny version: 4.0.03 (December/2011)

What it's all about

Very short description: PMF (Poor Man's Flight) is an OpenSource table-editor/visualizer for IBM's DB2 database. Main feature is viewing and editing any table in the database, but PMF has some other useful functions, too (see below). Useful for developers and DB2-Admins. PMF is available for Linux and Windows (and OS2, seriously).

What it does

Main Features:

PMF shows you all the tables in your database. Simply click on a table and PMF will display the table's contents.
You can easily edit (update, delete and insert) data in any table without having to issue tedious SQL-commands.
Generate and run your own SQL-Commands by simple mouse-clicks.
PMF doesn't use ODBC but its own (pretty fast) engine.

New features in PMF4:

Direct editing: Edit cells in the table directly, save all changes with a single click
Tabs: Open multiple tables in tabs, just like in a browser.
History: Toggle through command history, like in a browser
Bookmarks: Save complex or regularly used SQL in bookmarks, again just like in a browser.
Connection profiles: Store connection info (database/user/passwd) for each database individually and connect in an instant.
Filter: Right-click a cell to use the cell's contents as filter (constraint).

Additional Features:

Upload and retrieve LOBs (BLOBs, CLOBS, ...). Either read/write LOBs from/to specified files, or export/import a whole table, including LOBs, in a single session.
Create, store and load multi-lined SQL statements.
Query Database: Search for a specific entry in any or all tables.
Find and delete identical lines in any or all tables.
Easy Export and Import of IXF, WSF, DEL and plain-text files.
Drop tables and create tables from IXF sources.
Reorganisation, Runstats and Rebind (can improve speed).
Detailed Information on tables: Index, Creator, SQL-Types etc.
Security: Changes to tables can be automatically documented in a special table.
Index administration
Alter table (add columns)
Tablespace information and table sizes
Basic snapshot/monitoring
Both the Linux and Windows version are provided as Free Software, based on QT4

A little history

PMF (Poor Man's Flight) is a comfortable and rather powerful editor/visualizer for the tables of a DB2 Database. With DB2 v.2 IBM shipped a very useful program called "(Visualizer) Flight", which (among other things) allowed DB2 users to view and change the contents of tables.

In 1997 I started to write a program for my company which should do much the same (hence the name), for two reasons: First, we needed a trace-function: Changes to tables had to be documented. Second and most important, IBM's "Flight" was only available for OS/2 and we were using DB2 on both OS/2 and Windows. Since 1997 PMF has improved of course, it became faster and some useful functions have been added. Originally intended for inhouse use only, PMF soon became a "Don't leave home without it"-tool and even found some fans outside the company.

Being a Linux fan, I wanted to rewrite PMF for this platform and this is what I have been doing for the last couple of years. With TrollTech releasing non-commercial edition of their librabry, I was able to port the Linux version to Windows and provide PMF as Free Software.

For nearly 5 years I didn't change much if anything, but with Trolltech releasing QT4 it became obvious that the times are indeed a-changing and that a complete rewrite of the GUI was necessary. I started around christmas 2010 and spent nearly a year fixing bugs and adding new features (I'm doing this in my spare time).

So, whether you are a DB2-Admin or a software-developer writing DB2-Applications or just curious to take a look into your database without view-blocking heavy interfaces, you might find PMF very useful.