Here it is:  DataCleaner 1.5.4 :)

Although this release is a minor release it contains a few exciting features and fixes:

• We've updated the MetaModel version to 1.2 which adds support for two new datastores:
  • dBase databases (.dbf files)
  • MS Access databases (.mdb files)
• We've fixed a bug pertaining to text-file dictionary "file not found" errors.
• A lot of the other underlying libraries have been updated, providing improvements to performance and stability.

Head on over to the  downloads page to grab the new DataCleaner.

After much waiting, we are finally ready to release DataCleaner 1.5.3. Here's the wrap-up on what's been going on:

• The MetaModel dependency has been upgraded to version 1.1.8, which means:
  • Improved Excel spreadsheet support
  • Improved SQL Server support
  • Improved performance for CSV files
• Fixed a bug that caused certain database connection errors to be ignored in terms of user feedback.
• Fixed a bug that caused re-opening of database dictionaries to throw a NullPointerException.
• Fixed a bug related to dictionary lookups of null values.
• Added support for Teradata databases.
• Added connection templates for SQL Server connections.
• Added support for selection of custom encodings when reading CSV files.
• Fixed a minor bug relating to reading files on the classpath when running in Java WebStart mode (which manifested in an exception thrown when clicking on "About DataCleaner").

So as you can see, it's been a mix of minor bugfixes and a couple of improvements to compatibility and performance regarding certain datastores. We hope you enjoy this new release of DataCleaner. As always, you can ...

•  Get your copy at the /downloads page.
•  Run it directly from the internet using Java WebStart.

Let us know what you think!

About half a year ago we received an exciting inquiry from Jos van Dongen on behalf of him and his co-author Roland Bouman, telling us that they where writing a new book about Open Source Business Intelligence and in particular Pentaho-based solutions. And for this they where looking into DataCleaner for the data profiling section of the book!

The book is now out! It's called "Pentaho Solutions" and it's published by Wiley Publishing. You can read  about it and buy it on their website as well.

The book contains a walkthrough for building a data warehouse using Open Souce tools and in doing so applying DataCleaner for the important job of profiling and validation.

We congratulate Roland Bouman and Jos van Dongen for their great work to promote Open Source Business Intelligence and thank them for mentioning DataCleaner while they're at it!

Dear DataCleaner users,

We are happy to announce the release of  DataCleaner 1.5.2. Users of DataCleaner 1.5.0 or 1.5.1 won't be able to see a lot of changes in the user interface, but this release actually holds quite a lot of improvements “beneath the surface”:

• The most notable improvement is in the Value Distribution Profile. Previously this profile consumed quite a lot of memory which could lead to out-of-memory errors in extreme cases. This has been fixed by using on-disk caching with the berkeley db when nescesary.
• Another notable feature is that we can now distribute DataCleaner as a single JAR file. This means that we will be serving the application as a Java WebStart application (ie. run it as if it's an online application) and we are also considering other distribution options.
• When starting the application, it automatically downloads regular expressions from the  RegexSwap.
• A bug in regards to matching number-based columns in dictionaries was reported and fixed.
• A bug in regards to invalid characters in XML-export formats was reported and fixed.
• When opening files, we are now ignoring suffix case so that .CSV files can be opened as well as .csv.
• The number of columns shown in the preview window are automatically restricted if there are too many to show on a single screen.

You can download DataCleaner from the  downloads page or you can use our new feature:  Get it via Java WebStart!

This release underlines the ongoing evolution of  DataCleaner to be a more and more professionally capable data profiler and data quality tool. Seeing that DataCleaner is  being used in large corporations world wide I wish to address some thoughts that I have been having and that I know users are pondering with: How do you best combine the low adoption cost of Open Source applications like DataCleaner with the high flexibility that most commercial business-software provide? To service this need we've opened up a new division of the company that I work with,  Lund&Bendsen. Whether you need to deploy DataCleaner to high-scale installations, integrate the applications with your existing systems or develop customized profiles, validation rules or satisfy other enterprise needs, we offer you first class services and in-depth expertise you wont find anywhere else.

To cut to the chase: DataCleaner 1.5.2 is here and we wish to extends the community development with a professional effort. So don't hesitate to let us know if you see an opportunity to invest. Adding value by targeting your use of the product is in the interest of both customer, developer and community and this is the reason our business is there.

To all you non-business users out there: Sorry for the obvious commercial rant and we hope you all enjoy the newest DataCleaner release.

Best regards,
Kasper Sørensen
Founder of  eobjects.org and the  DataCleaner project

We're happy to announce the release of DataCleaner version 1.5.1. This release is a minor release, nevertheless containing a few nice features - especially for the users who are enjoying the exporting features that was introduced in 1.5:

• An additional HTML export format have been added to the built-in export formats (usable when exporting Profiler results in the desktop app and when executing the runjob command-line tool).
• The export format is now choosable directly in the desktop app.
• Four new measures where added to the String Analysis profile: avg. chars and max/min/avg white spaces.

The new version of DataCleaner is (as always) downloadable for free on the  downloads page and feedback from users is also greatly appreciated, ie:

• Fill out our  online user survey, or
• Post your comments and questions at our  discussion forum.

We hope that you all enjoy DataCleaner 1.5.1.

"Finally!" one might say. And this is definately what is going through my head right as I write this news-item. Finally, DataCleaner 1.5 has been released! Once again the effort to bring about the best open source data quality solution is bearing fruit.

The new release is definately one of the most significant ones in the history of DataCleaner. The overall goal of the release has been to step up from the shadows of the "small tools" pool and mark DataCleaner as an enterprise-ready application for profiling and validating datastores of all kinds - both in scheduled mode, on servers and in an intuitive desktop environment.

For those of you with an interest in every little detail about this release, please feel free to review the complete list of changes - for everyone else, here's the recap:

• Change of license to LGPL.
• Multi-threaded execution of Profiler and Validator.
• Command line (batch) execution of DataCleaner tasks.
• More elaborate status information during profiler and validator execution.
• New profile: Date mask matcher.
• New profile: Regex matcher.
• Load regex from the online RegexSwap repository.
• Automatic download and install of popular database drivers.
• More file types supported (.dat, .txt)
• XML file support improved (.xml)
• Memory improvements in Time analysis profile.
• Improved logging when running profiling and validation.
• Information schema provided for file-based datastores.
• Lazy-loading of columns in datastore-tree.

We hope you enjoy the new DataCleaner 1.5! Now go over and  download it right away.

Things are starting to shape up for the big release of DataCleaner 1.5. We are starting off with a bit of excitement around in the data quality community.

Probably the most dedicated online magazine about data quality,  data quality pro, have launched a series of articles about profiling, validating and comparing data with DataCleaner. So far an introductory tutorial (including a complete and realistic example data-set) and a background article/interview have been published:

•  Learn how to profile and validate data (for free) using DataCleaner
•  Interview with Kasper Sørensen, creator of DataCleaner

We hope that you will enjoy the articles and we thank  data quality pro for their great interest in our community.

Today we are announcing the first company,  Lund&Bendsen, to officially support DataCleaner and MetaModel on a commercial level. These eobjects.org projects are, as you know, independent projects that are run with the community in mind. But as time goes on they grow and for companies to pick them up and start using them in a commercial setting we also welcome third party commercial support to help spread the projects to environments where community-based support is insufficient.

 Lund&Bendsen is a Danish company with a strong expertise in Java development and training. Their service offerings include training, customization, integration and enhancement of DataCleaner and MetaModel so if your company is considering applying DataCleaner they might be interested in hiring some professionals to aid them in the process.

Over time more companies are expected to join in on commercial support for the eobjects.org projects. Keep up to date on the  DataCleaner support page and don't hesitate to contact us for any inquiries in this regard either.

The  Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) have published an interesting, unbiased and independent analysis of the market for Open Source business intelligence products. We are delighted to see that the article features a section about data quality and that TEC points at DataCleaner as a competent choise within the open source products:

In such situations, where the vendor does not support a specific functionality,
organizations can look to complementary open source solutions; the DataCleaner
project from eobjects.org, for instance, provides functionality to help profile
data and monitor data quality. It also points to a significant advantage with
open source applications: the fact that software is developed by the community
and for the community makes it much simpler to share innovative solutions
quickly and seamlessly.

You can read  the whole article by Anna Mallikarjunan from TEC by going to their website (user registration is required).

Another batch of updates, fixes and improvements for the upcoming DataCleaner release is ready. This time it's Release Candidate 2 offering a preview of what's to come in DataCleaner 1.5.

• DataCleaner download site:  http://datacleaner.eobjects.org/downloads

The main changes since Release Candidate 1 are multithreaded execution, the command line interface (runjob.sh / runjob.cmd), some UI updates and a few bugfixes. Go download the release candidate and use it as an opportunity to influence the development process by posting your comments on  the DataCleaner forum.

After working hard for a couple of days to implement substantial new features regarding integration of eobjects services and automatic download and install of popular database drivers, a new release candidate of DataCleaner is ready!

• DataCleaner download site:  http://datacleaner.eobjects.org/downloads

We hope that a lot of people will use the release candidate and provide feedback for further development towards the 1.5 final release.

I've spent the last couple of days implementing a couple of cool enhancements to the DataCleaner desktop-application:

• Automatic download and install of popular database drivers. Followed along with template connection strings in the "Open database" dialog. This will hopefully make it much easier for less experienced users to set up a connection to their database of choice.
• Direct integration with the new RegexSwap system so that the regexes that you post online will be accessible from within the desktop-application.

Screenshots have been posted to the  media page.

Wait for DataCleaner 1.5 for these features or build it yourself to check them out now.

Only a few days after the launch of the  new DataCleaner website, we are once again ready with new exciting features. This time we are launching the first edition of our new regular expression (regex) sharing subsite called "RegexSwap".

 RegexSwap is a specialized forum for sharing, categorizing, commenting and voting on regular expressions that can be used in DataCleaner and other regex-based applications. It is really easy to post your own regular expressions, test them online on the website, comment and vote on the regexes that you have found useful. In time the next releases of DataCleaner will also take advantage of this online "always up to date" regex resource and offer direct integration with RegexSwap.

RegexSwap is still in beta but is ready at a functional level which is why we are launching publically it now. It will recieve dedicated attention in the weeks and months to come.

Dear everybody,

As a special christmas present we have been working hard to design a new website for DataCleaner! Hopefully you will all enjoy the new site, which have been designed to further support our community and let it grow by incorporating more features to socialize and share ideas online. So go visit it now at the new URL:

•  http://datacleaner.eobjects.org

Among the new features are a more  personal profile system which is linked to some of the communities that our users already use frequently, namely  LinkedIn and  SourceForge. We have a whole new  media section with cool screenshots and webcasts. We are also redesigning our  mailing list structure. Instead of the single mailing list that we have been using so far, we are launching new "announcement" and "dev" mailing lists.

Our goal is to continuously launch new features on the website. The first one being a  user survey to gain a better insight into the minds of our users and community. So be sure to fill it out. In the future we will add more exiting features such as online sharing of regular expressions and reference data for DataCleaner dictionaries.

The  old website will continue to exist, but primarily as a wiki and bugtracking system. During the next couple of days we will be editing the wiki pages to make them more suitable for wiki-style editing (by everyone) as opposed to the former readonly strategy.

We hope you like our christmas present and that you will  let us know. and we wish you all a great 2009. Without a doubt, it will bring exiting times for DataCleaner and the DataCleaner community.

As we're moving steadily along towards the release of DataCleaner 1.5 we are fixing a few bugs and enhancing a lot of features. This leads to the desire to release our work since practically nothing has undergone changes that could destabilize the application since the 1.4 release. So today we're releasing DataCleaner 1.5 "snapshot". This also marks the first release under our new LGPL license.

Here are the changes from 1.4 so far:

• Change of license to LGPL.
• New profile: Date mask matcher.
• New profile: Regex matcher.
• More file types supported (.dat, .txt)
• XML file support improved (.xml)

Although this is in principle a development/beta release, we feel that it would be worth working with for most of your profiling needs. So... Go on, download it, tell us what you think and we'll see you around!

We've made a principal decision at eobjects.org to change the preferred license of our projects from the Apache License 2.0 to the Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

The main difference between the two licenses are that the LGPL requires any modifications to be contributed back to the Open Source community (ie. licensed under a similar license; LGPL or GPL). The eobjects.org projects are gaining the obvious advantages of the LGPL by ensuring that improvements are submitted back to the projects. This also means that we don't risk that anyone sell modified versions of our projects. It is still just as appropriate to use the projects as a part of commercial applications, but any modifications must be contributed back to the community.

• The Apache License 2.0:  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
• Lesser General Public License:  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.txt

Initially this change in license will affect the two flagship projects of eobjects.org: DataCleaner and MetaModel. This means that the next versions of these projects (DataCleaner 1.5 and MetaModel 1.1 accordingly) will be LGPL licensed. Also, new projects will be LGPL licensed unless special circumstances suggest otherwise.

We've just uploaded a webcast of the new DataCleaner 1.4 which provides a long awaited update for the old 0.4 webcasts!

Go enjoy the webcast - and be sure to download the newest version of DataCleaner. Over and out!

I'm please to announce the release of DataCleaner 1.4! This is a release that we feel will satisfy a lot of users with improvements and fixes for a lot of issues. Here's a very short compilation of changes, for more details, take a look at the roadmap.

• Replaced "Repeated values" profile with better and more advanced "Value distribution" profile.
• Dictionary matcher drill-to-details options.
• New application logo.
• Lots of small bugfixes and UI beautifications.
• Lots of sample dictionaries and regexes.

We hope you enjoy the new version of DataCleaner - Get it now!.

After some considerations about the future of DataCleaner, we've updated the roadmap to reflect our current plans for the direction of development. We are planning on releasing DataCleaner 1.4 by the end of the month and after that two new milestones have been added:

• DataCleaner 1.5: The main focus of this release is to provide a command line interface for our data quality framework. This means that users will be able to easily create batch jobs that they can schedule using their favorite scheduler. Other features will also include Pattern Finder improvements and a couple of new profiles.
• DataCleaner 1.6: We have a lot of suggestions that have been filling up our backlog. DataCleaner 1.6 will be all about getting everybody's needs into the application before we get ready to begin the webapp. Some of the exciting features of DataCleaner 1.6 will be relationship profiling and exporting of results.

Great news everybody. The Open Source Days '08 conference in Copenhagen will feature a so-called Lightning Speak by Kasper Sørensen on the topic of DataCleaner and the eobjects.org community.

We're really happy to get the message of DataCleaner out to more people and a conference like this is an ideal spot for demonstrations, discussions and experiences. Read more about the lightning speak at Kasper's blog:

•  http://kasper.eobjects.dk/2008/09/presenting-datacleaner-at-open-source.html

Update: The presentation is over and you can now also read the retrospective at Kasper's blog:

•  http://kasper.eobjects.dk/2008/10/fast-as-lightning.html

We've released a development/snapshot release of DataCleaner 1.4 in order to get early reactions for all the improvements and new features as well as supporting our users with up to date functionality. In my own opinion the development release is just as stable and "safe to use" as 1.3, but of course it lacks a bit of the manual testing that we put into the real releases.

You can download the development release at our  sourceforge download site.

Here's a short list of fixes since DataCleaner 1.3:

• Better memory handling and garbage collection
• Reference columns in drill-to-details windows
• Better error handling when loading schemas
• Quoting of string values in visualized tables (in order to distinguish empty strings and white spaces)
• New profile: Value Distribution, which is an improved version of the Repeated Values profile. The Value Distribution profile has an option to configure the top/bottom n values to include in the result.
• Better control of profile result column width.
• Bugfix: Copy to clipboard functions now work properly.
• Bugfix: Scrollbars added to visualized tables.

Take a look at the roadmap for more current developments of DataCleaner.