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Tips for creating a Flat File?
- Thread starter NicoleM
- Start date
StephenFalken
Programmer
Hi Nicole,
I take it for granted that the venerable comma-delimited text file is not what you mean by your question.
Your answer depends on your platform and how you plan on using the datasource. Since it's data, and since it's flat text, XML might provide the most flexible way to utilize the data once it's stored.
I'm not sure what Oracle offers for XML transformation or availability, but SQL Server 2000 has a pretty useful (if generic) engine for manipulating databases as XML, if you have a RDBMS available.
To point up your question though, XML is probably your best bet as far as a flat text file goes; the structure of the data is right there with the data. This lends efficiency to manipulating the structure and the data itself.
More applications every day are beginning to send messages internally and externally as XML, as well as holding config info and the like in XML files. This will bode well for future inter-application operations you may want to implement, from desktop to SOAP applications.
Hope this helps,
sFalken
I take it for granted that the venerable comma-delimited text file is not what you mean by your question.
Your answer depends on your platform and how you plan on using the datasource. Since it's data, and since it's flat text, XML might provide the most flexible way to utilize the data once it's stored.
I'm not sure what Oracle offers for XML transformation or availability, but SQL Server 2000 has a pretty useful (if generic) engine for manipulating databases as XML, if you have a RDBMS available.
To point up your question though, XML is probably your best bet as far as a flat text file goes; the structure of the data is right there with the data. This lends efficiency to manipulating the structure and the data itself.
More applications every day are beginning to send messages internally and externally as XML, as well as holding config info and the like in XML files. This will bode well for future inter-application operations you may want to implement, from desktop to SOAP applications.
Hope this helps,
sFalken
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