Re: Parsing / ' " characters



On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:52:09 -0500, "J Shrimps, Jr."
<JumboShrimps@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>I believe the comma's in the field of the linked file that
>are preventing that paticular record from being appended.
>Is there any way to load the contents of a specific record,
>even with the , and // and '
>into memory such that I can copy just that record
>into a temporay table?

When you link the file, the wizard gives you the opportunity to specify
the "delimiter" (the character used to separate fields) and text
qualifier (the character used to enclose the data in text fields). By
default, these are , and " respectively.

To import the whole line from the text file into a single field, set the
qualifier to {none}, and for a delimiter, specify a character that does
not appear anywhere in the file. Often the pipe character "|" is a good
one to use - but this depends entirely on the contents of your file.

To get the contents of a specific record in the text file, you have
basically two choices. One is to link the file as above and then use a
query that selects that records by its contents.

The other is to write code that reads the text file and identifies the
record in question, then appends it to your temporary table. This
usually the only sensible approach if the record is identified by its
position in the file (e.g. the first record) rather than by its
contents. Here's some air code that shows the general idea:

Dim strFileName As String
Dim strLine As String
Dim strSQL As String
Dim lngFN as Long

'Open file
strFileName = "D:\Folder\File.txt"
lngFN = FreeFile()
Open strFileName For Input As #lngFN

'Read first line and close file
Line Input #lngFN, strLine
Close #lnfFN

'If there are any ' in the line, we need to double them. Otherwise
'they will be confused with the ' ' used as quote marks in the SQL
'statement
strLine = Replace(strLine, "'", "''")

'Append to table
strSQL = "INSERT INTO NameOfTable ( NameOfField ) VALUES ('" _
& strLine & "');"
CurrentDB.Execute strSQL, dbFailOnError


>That one record uniquely identifies the records to follow,
>so I really need the entire contents of that record.
>
>"John Nurick" <j.mapSoN.nurick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:gj68o1t8d7pdbc15491kupj2k9d81mfpna@xxxxxxxxxx
>> This can get complicated, but let's start with the simple questions.
>>
>> 1) What do you mean by "the insert statement doesn't execute"? I presume
>> that's what's actually happening is that you have a statement like
>> CurrentDB.Execute strSQL
>> which is being executed but that some or all of the records are not
>> being appended.
>>
>> 2) Is the problem in the linking or in the appending? Open the linked
>> table in data*** view and inspect some of the records that you know
>> from the text file should contain quote marks or the other characters
>> you mention. Do they appear correctly in the linked table? If not, the
>> problem is either in the text file or in the way you linked the table.
>>
>> 3) Open the text file in Notepad or another text editor. As I understand
>> it from what you've said, you're treating each line as a single field.
>> Does every line begin and end with a quote (") character? (i.e. each
>> field is "qualified" with guote marks) This is what Access expects of a
>> linked text file unless you tell it otherwise.
>> If the lines are just plain text not "qualified" with quotes, you need
>> to specify this when you link the text file, either in the text import
>> wizard or with an import/export specification. Otherwise, quotes within
>> the data are likely to make the import/link routine go wrong.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 21:46:45 -0500, "J Shrimps, Jr."
>> <JumboShrimps@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Have a lnked text file I need to
>> >extract data from - only one character field
>> >in file, but some of the records have
>> >// ' " characters, so when I try to
>> >insert them into a temporary table with
>> > strSQL = "Insert Into tmpExport ( Code )" _
>> >& "Select " & StrTblName & ".[CODE] from" & StrTblName & ";"
>> >However, when some of these funky characters are encountered
>> >in the field CODE, then the insert statement doesn't execute.
>> >I'm assuming Access is interpreting the // " ' characters as some kind of
>> >delimiter.
>> >How can I mask these characters so Access can append them
>> >(through code) to another table?
>> >
>> >
>>
>> --
>> John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]
>>
>> Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.
>>
>
>

--
John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.

.