fields on separate lines of text file 3

[Phil Thoms]

Hello,
A client has asked me if there is a way of importing a text file into VFP 6 with 1 field per line:-

field 1
field 2
field 3
field 4

field 1
field 2
field 3
field 4
field 5

There are 4 or 5 fields for each record, separated with a blank line.
I thought of importing text to a database and manipulating the fields and sending them into another database. However, I wondered if there is a quick format that's already in existence to deal with this situation.
Thanks

 

[Olaf Doschke]

You may get this look visually, if you EDIT instead of BROWSE.
This visual mode also applies to the grid control and is controlled via its View property.

Besides that, no there is no automatic output of records as one field per row, you would need to be able to specify WITH CHARACTER CHR(13) in a COPY TO DELIMITED export, but you can only specify a printable character here, or TAB or BLANK, but not CHR(13) nor ^M nor ENTER or RETURN keywords.

So you better do that with TEXT..ENDTEXT and SET TEXTMERGE ON and TO FILE some.txt

Bye, Olaf.

 

[JRB-Bldr]

if there is a way of importing a text file into VFP...

Not directly.

However as long as you could know FOR CERTAIN when a value was to go into a specific field (such as when Field1. etc. would ALWAYS appear) you could write your own small import program to receive all of the data into a single field and then (ONLY BY KNOWING FOR CERTAIN WHERE EACH FIELD VALUE WAS) you could read data out of that temporary 'import' table and put it into a properly formatted table.

Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Sorry, yes - importing. Why did I read exporting?

No, the best way will be using a single field import cursor and append from the text file, then go with your planned transformation process.

Bye, Olaf.