[SGVLUG] Help with file format

[Greg Stark]

James,
You can config the DTS to ignore errors and continue loading.  Maybe the
file is corrupt in one spot... you'll find out.

I would think you have more detail about the file from your customer, like
what's in the file.  That its data from their database, you should know what
columns and data types make a row (unless it's a Pick database.)

Stretching here... Might you have a file size issue? Is the file larger than
4GB? If it is, is line 15103 at that 4GB boundry? (Probably not, that's a
278Kb record size)Yes, you say! Could it be that your disk is formatted DOS
and not NTFS?  DOS has a problem when the file size is greater than 4Gb.

Greg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On
> Behalf Of James Neff
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 7:57 AM
> To: SGVLUG Discussion List.
> Subject: [SGVLUG] Help with file format
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> We received a file from a customer and I'm having trouble determine what
> the character set is.
> 
> When I run the "file" utility:
> 
> [root at appserver2 06-11-28]# file customer-file.txt
> customer-file.txt: MPEG ADTS, layer I, v1,  96 kBits, 44.1 kHz, Stereo
> 
> 
> When I run "less"  it thinks its a binary file and I see garbage if I
> choose to look at it anyway.
> 
> When I run "vi" I can read the file just fine from start to finish but
> at the bottom of the terminal is:
> 
> "customer-file.txt" [converted][dos] 47830L, 9943298C
> 
> The line count is correct.
> 
> When I run "more" I can read the file just fine from start to finish.
> 
> When I try to use "split", the first 15103 lines look ok, but after that
> everything looks like garbage, as if its binary.
> 
> Before I can go back to our customer and ask them for a proper file, I
> need to at least tell them what is wrong with this file (other than
> saying something is wrong with it).
> 
> What started this problem was when we tried to import this into our MS
> SQL database using DTS.  At line 15103 the DTS reported an error saying
> there were extra columns in that record.  When we first opened DTS it
> reported the file is in UNICODE.   How would I go about verifying that?
> 
> So how do I determine what exactly is wrong with this?  Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> James