Merging HEC-DSS Files

To Merge the current DSS file into another DSS file:

  • Select Merge (copy) … from the Edit menu. The Merge (copy all records) into HEC-DSS File Browser ("Figure: Merge (Copy All Records) into HEC-DSS File Window") will open.

    Figure: Merge (Copy All Records) into HEC-DSS File Window


  • Enter in a new DSS File name or select an existing DSS file into which you want to copy all of the records from the current DSS file and click Open.
  • A message will appear, stating "Files Merged." Click OK to acknowledge the message and close the message box.

Squeezing DSS Files in HEC-DSSVue

Whenever you delete a DSS record, HEC-DSS marks the record as deleted but doesn't actually delete the record from the DSS file. Other actions, like rename and edit can cause HEC-DSS to create a new record and mark the old one as deleted. This dis-inclination to actually delete a record from the database is normal for database systems but it means that periodically, "maintenance" must be performed on the database to recover storage space by cleaning out the deleted records and to speed up data access by rebuilding index tables. The Squeeze command performs this maintenance by copying all valid data in the current DSS file to a new DSS file then deleting the original DSS file and renaming the new file to the old filename.

To perform maintenance on an HECDSS database:

  • Open the DSS file in DSSVue
  • Select Squeeze from the Tools menu.

  • When the process is complete, a message box will appear ("Figure: HEC-DSSVue Squeeze Message (Example)")

    Figure: HEC-DSSVue Squeeze Message (Example)

    NOTE: Once a file has been squeezed, datasets that had been deleted CANNOT be undeleted.

Viewing Status of DSSVue and its DSS Files

See DSSVue Manual Advanced Debug Functions

DSSVue provides a variety of options to monitoring the status of DSSVue itself as well as the database(s) you have open. To access these options:

  • Select Debug -> OFF from the Advanced menu in DSSVue.
  • This will activate the Debug submenu which contains the following options:
    • Message Level…—this will temporarily change the message level for the messages that are written by HEC-DSS to its log file.
    • DSS File Header—this should open a window showing a table of information that is stored by HEC-DSS in the DSS file header for the current file. Unfortunately, in the version of DSSVue included in this version of ResSim, this option crashes ResSim.
    • Record Addresses—this option opens a window that provides a variety of esoteric information about the records for the currently selected datasets. Most of this information is only useful to the programmers of DSSVue.
    • Pathname Bin—works only DSS 7 files. Shows information about the indexing of the Pathnames in the DSS file

    • Debug/Examine File…—Only useful to the programmers; this option allows them to look at what is stored at specific addresses in the DSS file

    • Memory Monitor…—this option displays the Memory Monitor ("Figure: Memory Monitor"), a very small window which shows a graph of the quantity of real-time memory used by HEC-ResSim and HEC-DSSVue in relation to the memory allocated.

      Figure: Memory Monitor


    • DSS Files Opened—this opens the HEC-DSS File Manager Status window ("Figure: HEC-DSS File Manager Status Window"). This window displays the number of HEC-DSS files you have accessed during the current session of DSSVue; and for each file it reports: the name and location of the file, whether the file is currently open, the first and last times you accessed the file, and the total number of accesses.

      Figure: HEC-DSS File Manager Status Window


    • DSS ZSET—this option allows you to enter a ZSET parameter and value.

    • DSS ZINQIR—this option allows you to enter a ZINQIR parameter and will respond with information relevant to the parameter you provided.