Title: Query Builder
Last modified: January 15, 2023

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# Query Builder

 *  Resolved [eicken71](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eicken71/)
 * (@eicken71)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/)
 * By default, the query builder opens with the option “maximum rows: 100” activated.
   This always causes syntax errors – perhaps a peculiarty of Maria DB (the LIMIT
   command does work, though).
   Anyway, I would like to turn this option off permanently
   since it is annoying having to deactivate this every time I start a new query.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Thread Starter [eicken71](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eicken71/)
 * (@eicken71)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16374951)
 * Another problem is that apparently SQL queries read only a maximum of 4,438 rows
   even though the data explorer shows that the table from which data are selected
   has many more rows. Why is this? And is there a workaround?
 *  Plugin Author [Passionate Programmer Peter](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peterschulznl/)
 * (@peterschulznl)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16377302)
 * Hi [@eicken71](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eicken71/),
 * Thank you for reaching out!
 * The Query Builder currently performs a synchronous query. If you query a table
   with several million rows, you won’t be able to cancel. You will either use a
   lot of memory and have to wait a very long time or run out of memory and get 
   an error. The max rows limitation was added to prevent users performing such 
   queries.
 * For these reasons I don’t think it’s a good idea to disable the max rows limitation
   by default, but we can add a option to our plugin settings to give users a choise.
 * However, before going to solutions I would like to understand why the limit command
   is causing you issues. Can you provide the necessary information to reproduce
   this issue?
 * I’m also curious about the maximum available rows. Do you see any errors when
   you enable debug mode?
 * Our long term solution is to query the database asynchronous and add a cancel
   button to allow cancellation at any time. This is on our to do list, but it has
   a low priority as most users are not querying large tables using the Query Builder.
 * Out of curiosity: what is your purpose for querying such long lists? Your information
   can help us to provide better solutions for all users…
 * Thanks,
   Peter
 *  Thread Starter [eicken71](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eicken71/)
 * (@eicken71)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16377514)
 * Hi, Peter,
 * starting my answer from the bottom of your message:
   I’m operating a language 
   learning site – ondaz.de – with interactive H5P exercises. In order to better
   understand user behaviour (exercises too difficult? how many give up without 
   completing? which exercise nees improving?), I have installed the h5pxapikatchu
   plugin which collects and stores the xapi statements sent by H5P. It is a very
   messy tool: Whenever a visitor hits a post in which H5P exercises are embedded,
   even without actually interacting with the exercise, H5P fires “attempted” statements
   which are collected. When a user interacts with the exercise, an “interacted”
   statement is generated. Therefore, a monthly collection of data is around 25,000
   rows of ‘interactions’. As I learnt from analysing the data, most of it is white
   noise of the kind just described. But in order to reduce the amount of data and
   prepare them for analysis, I must still be able to handle the mass. The h5pxapikatchu
   plugin itself only allows to delete everything in order to prevent the database
   to become too large; analysis and selective reduction require sql access.The 
   problem with the default max. row limitation was that I had taken from tutorials
   to end queries with “;” – the Data Access editor then places a LIMIT command 
   behind the “;” which causes a syntax error. I have now found out that without
   the “;” there is no syntax problem. So this issue is resolved.If I may add one
   more point: The funktionality for saving queries is not very convenient. I would
   prefer to build a query library with names of queries and explanations of what
   they do. It is not clear to me what happens when I click the “save” button and
   how I can label the query just saved. So I have resorted to collecting queries
   in an EXCEL sheet.
 * Thank you,
 * Matthias
 *  Plugin Author [Passionate Programmer Peter](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peterschulznl/)
 * (@peterschulznl)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16380538)
 * Hi Matthias,
 * Thank you for you explanation!
 * The organization of queries needs to be improved. This is an known issue. It 
   started small to see if there was any interest. It’s time to think bigger. This
   is on our to do list.
 * Regarding your use case, there might be simplier solutions. When you start the
   Data Explorer and search for your table, click the manage button, select export
   to CSV and click export. You can load the CSV directly into Excel.
 * Does this help?
   Peter
 *  Thread Starter [eicken71](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eicken71/)
 * (@eicken71)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16381577)
 * Thank you, Peter, but in my use case exporting a single databse table is of little
   use. Gathering information suitable for analysing H5P user behaviour requires
   combining information from many tables, including those created by the H5P-plugin
   that contain information about the exercises presented on my site.
 * After now having understood WP data access, what it does and what it can’t do
   yet, the challenge for me is simply learning sql better, exploring the data structure
   and composing meaningful queries. The ultimate goal would be just one query that
   creates one table per month which can be CSV-exported from the query builder 
   for import into a statistics tool – a table containining all the information 
   needed for useful analyses but no more.
 * Best wishes,
 * Matthias
 *  Plugin Author [Passionate Programmer Peter](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peterschulznl/)
 * (@peterschulznl)
 * [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16389770)
 * Hi Matthias,
 * Sorry for me late reply! I had some deadlines to catch…
 * An other alternative might be to create a data table and change the number of
   rows shown per page (100 for example) to make it easier to navigate through the
   pages/rows. Changing the page length is explained here:
 * [https://wpdataaccess.com/docs/data-tables-advanced-features/advanced-settings/](https://wpdataaccess.com/docs/data-tables-advanced-features/advanced-settings/)
 * Search for: pageLength
 * Would that be an acceptable solution for you?
 * Thanks,
   Peter

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Passionate Programmer Peter](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peterschulznl/)
 * Last activity: [3 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-builder/#post-16389770)
 * Status: resolved