noeld (3/20/2008)

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Parsing is, in my opinion, client-side responsibility. Doing these kind of things is SQL Server is not impossible neither difficult but I tend to pass that to specialized languages...

You could load the entire file into a single VARCHAR(MAX) column and use SUBSTRING to split it up on the server or you may be able to find some functionality...

This could just as easily (perhaps more easily) be done by pumping the raw XML into a staging table column and using the native SQL Server XML data type's .nodes()...

Hi johnr,

The sample you posted appears to have row delimiters in it. If there are no row delimiters at all, and the file looks like this:

TEST1ABCTEST2DEFTEST3 TEST4GHI

Then...

johnr (3/19/2008)

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Is it possible to use SSIS to import this same flat file if it doesn't have a ROW delimiter?

I get these files which are basically text streams and they...

JJ B (3/19/2008)

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Mike: I'd be interested to know if you ever get the TYPE option to work. I had read about it and tried it, but it never worked...

That shouldn't be a problem with comma-separated lists of numbers, but for character data it could present a problem. You might be able to use the TYPE directive to...

Jeff Moden (3/6/2008)

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Mike C (3/6/2008)

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Heh... guess it depends on what business you're in... I've been fortunate in not ever having to mess with EDI files. I have had to...

Yes, catchy title. When I first clicked on it I...

Charles Kincaid (3/6/2008)

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With all due respect to all of y'all after these many years I've seen some zany stuff. I'm rarely surprised any more. I write file parsers...

paul.ibison (3/6/2008)

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Brandon,

all due respect but I think you're missing the point.

Judging by some of the questions, some others (Jeff apart) have also never really tried to solve this problem...

This looks like a traditional header/footer formatted text files. It doesn't seem to account for additional information in the header and/or footer that applies to all rows nested within...

michael.rosquist (2/27/2008)

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Identity is evil.

Using identity as PK is bad.

Having a table like this:

CREATE TABLE Countries

(CountryID INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,

CountryName VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL)

If I were Joe Celko I...

Unfortunately for me I've never been good at office politics 🙁 I see people on the job scheming and plotting to get ahead all the time. While it's incredibly...

This is an interesting idea, and I think I get the author's point - why use the FTS "sledgehammer" for simpler tasks that don't require all the extra functionality? ...