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A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

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    A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

    I am using Alpha Five ver 11 on a Windows Vista PC. I am using .dbf files, not SQL.

    I have a 1.9 million row .csv file that I want to import into A5.

    The file only has seven columns; not very wide, just quite tall.

    MS-Access has imported this file just fine, but A5 just hangs on it.

    I have used A5 to sucessfully Import many other .csv files so I am familiar with the process.

    Thanks for helping - this is a critical need.

    #2
    Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

    A little more information would be useful.

    What happens when A5 "chokes"?

    What method or approach are you using to do this? Do have some code you can show us?

    Are you using the same machine that works for Access to also do this in A5? If not, is there a difference in available RAM?
    -Steve
    sigpic

    Comment


      #3
      Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

      Have you tried dividing the .csv file into several files?

      Comment


        #4
        Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

        Are you reaching the max size of dbf files ??

        Comment


          #5
          Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

          Hi Daniel,

          Originally posted by JimDK View Post
          Are you reaching the max size of dbf files ??
          Specifically, there is a 2 Gigabyte limit on any single file imposed by windows and the DBF format.

          Assuming each line of the CSV is less than 1000 or so characters, the size of the original file will be under 2 gigabytes, but it's likely that is not the issue. My guess is the csv file is probably under 100 Megabytes, and that would not cause a problem for A5 either. However, if the row delimiter is just a Carriage return (ascii 13) or just a line feed (chr 10), that could be a problem. But you could easily fix that with the function GET_FROM_FILE(), SAVE_TO_FILE(), and STRTRAN() functions.

          If the structure of the DBF is over 1000 or so characters per record, you would also exceed the maximum 2 Gigabyte size for the dbf file if you tried an import that large.

          It is also possible you have another, non-ASCII character in a field. I suggest 1st trying the import with a small subset of the file, and see if that works. If that works, you should be able to isolate the choke point by trying a version running it against subsets of the entire file and find where it has issues until you locate the spot or spots that cause trouble.
          Regards,

          Ira J. Perlow
          Computer Systems Design


          CSDA A5 Products
          New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
          CSDA Barcode Functions

          CSDA Code Utility
          CSDA Screen Capture


          Comment


            #6
            Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

            "chokes" = A5 hangs after the import process begins.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

              Originally posted by WaltMorgan View Post
              Have you tried dividing the .csv file into several files?
              Yes. A5 also hangs on 852,000 row subset.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                Originally posted by csda1 View Post
                Hi Daniel,


                Specifically, there is a 2 Gigabyte limit on any single file imposed by windows and the DBF format.

                Assuming each line of the CSV is less than 1000 or so characters, the size of the original file will be under 2 gigabytes, but it's likely that is not the issue. My guess is the csv file is probably under 100 Megabytes, and that would not cause a problem for A5 either. However, if the row delimiter is just a Carriage return (ascii 13) or just a line feed (chr 10), that could be a problem. But you could easily fix that with the function GET_FROM_FILE(), SAVE_TO_FILE(), and STRTRAN() functions.

                If the structure of the DBF is over 1000 or so characters per record, you would also exceed the maximum 2 Gigabyte size for the dbf file if you tried an import that large.

                It is also possible you have another, non-ASCII character in a field. I suggest 1st trying the import with a small subset of the file, and see if that works. If that works, you should be able to isolate the choke point by trying a version running it against subsets of the entire file and find where it has issues until you locate the spot or spots that cause trouble.
                There are actually two .csv files - same structure but different row count, different data - one is 102 Mb and the other is 78 Mb. A5 hangs on the smaller one (big one too). If their were some "poison" character(s) in the data then I would have thought Access would have barfed on it too but it did not.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                  DB_Dan reread Ira's post. I just spent like 15 hours working on something that has worked for years and now does not. This to is an import.
                  I had bad characters for a field that it could not except. You have to look through the CSV file for abnormal data and Ira is correct break it
                  down to smaller sets and try. Good Luck I got mine working now off for some more Holiday Cheer.
                  Nicholas Wieland
                  LedgerSuite.com Corp
                  [email protected]
                  http://www.ledgersuite.com

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                    Hi Daniel,

                    Originally posted by DB_Dan View Post
                    If their were some "poison" character(s) in the data then I would have thought Access would have barfed on it too but it did not.
                    Why would you ever assume that 1 program would do the same thing as another? Different people programmed them. Some people assume just because they used a MID() function in some program that it must exist in A5. The equivalent is there with SUBSTR(), but they are not the same either.

                    If you use Alpha to display the bad row of data, you may not see the character, or it may appear as a rectangle in Alpha Five. I use a binary (hex) display program to see what actual ASCII codes are there. You could use Alpha commands to read the file is as a blob and then dump the values as hex characters too to find the bad data.

                    Also, sometimes it is typed wrong as well. Imagine you were importing to a number field and had the letter B in the CSV. Imagine you had an invalid date imported into a date field. I'm not sure what Alpha does in those cases, and it may have changed from version to version.

                    A basic Database rule is that foreign data (ones you did not generate) should always be cleaned up before importing into your data as you have no idea of the data quality. This can be bad data, un-normalized values, wrong case values, different format (e.g. dates), etc.
                    Regards,

                    Ira J. Perlow
                    Computer Systems Design


                    CSDA A5 Products
                    New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
                    CSDA Barcode Functions

                    CSDA Code Utility
                    CSDA Screen Capture


                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                      Thanks everyone for the help. If I could go 'back in the day' to my command line UNIX (anyone remember SCO?) there would be no problem examining or cleaning up the data. Looks like I am finally going to have to learn to live in/with Windows.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                        Dan use should be able to open the data in notepad and review it it is text.
                        Nicholas Wieland
                        LedgerSuite.com Corp
                        [email protected]
                        http://www.ledgersuite.com

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                          Originally posted by DB_Dan View Post
                          Thanks everyone for the help. If I could go 'back in the day' to my command line UNIX (anyone remember SCO?) there would be no problem examining or cleaning up the data. Looks like I am finally going to have to learn to live in/with Windows.
                          Sure! it's still on the market

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                            Hi Daniel,
                            This may be way out there, but...having successfully imported the file into Access can you now import it from Access into your DBF using File/Import Data and then stepping through the DAO import Genie. It'd be interesting to see what happens at least.

                            -John

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: A5 chokes on import of 2 million row .csv file

                              As Ira has mentioned, bad characters in the file can cause problems for Alpha's import, sometimes when I import files with Danish characters in (�,�,�), I have to import to Access first, and them import from the Access table to Alpha's dbf files, it seems like Access import is more tolerant than Alpha.

                              Comment

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