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Truncate target?

Syniti Knowledge Platform

A few folks on my project have requested the option to enable Target truncation as a feature or option, instead of classic delete statements for sources. Jasen.Slate@syniti.com and others have requested this feature - as a performance improvement and to avoid situations where disabled sources still contain target data that has to manually be removed.

I believe this is the behavior of components of SAP BODS / Data Services jobs.

Posted by JOHN SLAGLE ·
Status: Planned1 comment

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Comments1

  • John Munkberg

    Team•

    Jun 27, 2025

    @JOHN SLAGLE Would you envision this as a choice on the Primary Source (I.e. the working table) such that the developer would choose whether that source does a DELETE or TRUNCATE? This introduces some risk in a multi-source ETL where the order of the sources would become critical as only the FIRST source should issue a Truncate and not the second, third, etc sources.

    It would also make it tougher to debug a given SOURCE while leaving the other source data unaffected.

    These are both very minor issues - but there is always some fear as we continue to scale rapidly that these “options” make it more confusing, introduce risk, etc.

    Delete always works - even if it’s slower. Truncate works perfectly - sometimes.

    Is this a concern we should have or am I overthinking this? You can always add a custom rule to truncate your target if performance is an issue.