DataFlux Data Management Studio 2.6: User Guide

Text File Input Node

A Text File Input node specifies a delimited text file as an input in a data job. Before you add this node to a job, you should be familiar with the format of the text file so you can load it properly. The properties dialog for this node 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.

Input file - Enables you to enter the path and name of your text file data source. You can also click Browse to navigate to the file location.

Text qualifier - Specifies the character that DataFlux Data Management Studio should expect (if any) at the beginning and end of each text field value. The two available qualifiers are a single quotation mark (') and double quotation marks (").

Number of rows to skip - When selected, enables you to specify the number of introductory lines to skip before DataFlux Data Management Studio starts reading the file content as data.

Field delimiter - Specifies the type of separator (delimiter) to use for separating data fields. The drop-down list includes comma, tab, space, semicolon, and other. If you set the delimiter to Other and leave the delimiter blank, it reads the entire row into the first field according to the length specified for the field. If the line is longer than the length, the remaining characters on the line are truncated.

Number of rows to read - When selected, enables you to limit the number of rows to be read as input when you work with delimited text files. When selected, you can choose fewer rows as input rather than the entire content. Check this box to set a limit to the number or rows that can be retrieved.

Encoding - Enables you to set encoding options.

Preserve whitespace in field values - When selected, preserves the white space that appears in field values.

The Fields section of the properties dialog includes the following elements:

Fields Table - Enables you to define each field in your text file, with values for Field Name, Field Type, and Field Length. You can click Add to define a new field and use the up and down arrows to change the order of fields. Finally, you can click Delete to remove field definitions.

Import - Enables you to restore a file layout from a DFL file that you have exported.

Export - Enables you to store a given file layout that can be shared for parsing other input files. In this case you can set the text qualifier and the delimiter and store the file layout to create. The Export option lets you save the file layout as a .dfl file.

Suggest - Scans a user-selected number of rows at the beginning of a file. Then, it builds and displays a suggested file format in the Fields section of the Properties dialog.

You can access the following advanced properties by right-clicking the Text File Input node:

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