DataFlux Data Management Studio 2.5: User Guide

Fixed Width File Output Node

You can add a Fixed Width File Output node to a data job to output your data to well-defined fixed-width fields in your output file. Once you have added the node, you can double-click it to open its properties dialog. The properties dialog includes the following elements:

Name - Specifies a name for the node.

Notes - Enables you to open the Notes dialog. You use the dialog to enter optional details or any other relevant information for the node.

Output Table - Enables you to enter the path and name of your text file data source (for example, c:\reports\myreport.txt). You can also click Browse to navigate to the file location. Then, you can double-click a data source to see what specific data tables are available in that format.

Line terminator - Specifies the character used to end a line. Select one of the following options:

None - Does not add line separators to the output file.

Line Feed - Adds a line feed to separate lines. This option is designed mostly for UNIX, which expects only a line feed to move to the next line.

Line Feed/Carriage Return - Adds a line feed along with a carriage return to move to the next line. This option is designed mostly for DOS, which expects a carriage return and a line feed to move to the next line.

Encoding - Enables you to set encoding options.

Display file after job runs - When selected, opens the completed text file in your default text editor.

The Output fields section of the dialog includes the following elements:

Available - Displays the fields that you can make available for the next step in your data job. Items displayed in this list are dependent on your data sources and any preceding steps in your data job.

Selected - Displays the fields that will be made available to the next node in your data job.

Export - Enables the import functionality available in the External Data Provider step. You can store the file format of a data source in a DFL file to be used later to restore the same file format. The DFL file has the same structure and type as the DFL file that is provided when you export file layouts with fixed width text file and delimited text file data inputs. The DFL file can restore the file format in the EDP step as easily as importing the file itself.

You can access the following advanced properties by right-clicking the Fixed Width File Output node:

• APPEND
• BYTE_ORDER_MARK
• ENCODING
• FIELDS
• FILENAME
• LINE_END