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The Text File Data Object

The Text object allows you to access most types of row/column based text files.  You can define fixed width or delimited, as well as DOS and UNIX style text files.

Properties

Action

Describes the action to take for output streams.  Ignored for input streams.  Valid options are:

Option

Description

None

Take no action

ClearThenInsert

Clears the table, then inserts records into the text file

InsertOnly

Inserts record into the text file

Alias

Alias identifier.  Aliases are used on all design objects to simplify coding and to ensure each object has a unique identifier.

ColumnLayout

The column layout (or file structure) of the table.  Click on the Ellipse (...) button to fill in the column layout, or select an existing column layout from the repository.

Comments

Comment area to give descriptive text about the data object and its purpose.

DelimiterType

If the file is a delimited text file, specify the type of delimiter used.

Option

Description

Tab

Tab character

Space

Space character

Comma

Comma character

Other

Other; specify the character used in the DelimiterTypeOther property

 

DelimiterTypeOther

If the Delimiter type is other than tab, space, or comma you should set the DelimiterType to Other and specify the numeric character code of the text files delimiter in this property.  For instance, if the delimiter is the # sign you would enter: 35  (see the Ascii Chart for common character codes)

EOFMarker

The End-of-File marker used in the text file.  

Option

Description

DOS

Carriage return / Line feed

UNIX

Line Feed

FilePath

The filename of the text file you want to read or write.  This represents the filename WITH the full Path.  

FirstRowColumnHeaders

True/False. Specifies whether the first row in the text file represents the column headers.  In this case, the first row will be ignored when reading the file.  When writing the file, the first record written will be the column headers.

LayoutType

Delimited/Fixed Width.  Specifies whether the files columns are delimited or fixed width.

Name

Descriptive name for this object.  You can enter any text to describe the object

StringsWrappedInChar

Specifies whether the String-based columns (String, Varchar, Char) are wrapped in a special character, such as the double quote character (") = 34.  (See Ascii Chart)

TextEncoding

Text encoding gives you the capability to handle different types of encoded text files such as ASCII, UTF and Unicode.

Option

Description

Default

Encoding for the system's current ANSI code page.

ASCII

Encoding for the ASCII (7 bit) character set.

BigEndianUnicode

Encoding for the Unicode format in the big-endian byte order.

Unicode

Encoding for the Unicode format in little-endian byte order.

CodePage1252

Encoding for Windows 1252 encoding which handles most North American and European character sets

UTF7

Encoding for the UTF-7 format.

UTF8

Encoding for the UTF-8 format.

 

 


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