I currently have 23 different data extracts that I manage for enterprise reporting. These files are output from different corporate systems, like Business Objects, Cognos, MS Reporting Services, custom in-house legacy PowerBuilder apps, etc. The fortunate, common thread is that I've been able to get my providers or the apps published in various delimited text formats to a common file server and directory. They are on different schedules for publishing and are typically just file "over-writes," replacing the entire content each time, rather than data appends.
I would like to build an A5 front-end to expose the data in these files to my customers for reporting and analysis. I would prefer to have a separate back-end application that manages the data. However, due to their varying frequency of updates, I don't want to import them, rather just link to the files knowing their defined formats, create various sets for reports, and then provide various reports and functionality through forms and coding.
The problem is, I cannot find the ability to "link" to a text file with A5v9.
I've searched the application help, online help, and this forum. Maybe my terminology is incorrect, as is often the case with different but similar applications/products. I've searched for various incantations of the terms "link", "delimited", "text", "external", and "file".
Why don't I just import them? The text files are natively smaller in size. I see no need to import them as tables and create dbfs, and then have to keep or delete the text files each time. It's extra time and processing, plus requires more logic in case the latest replacement file never happened to appear (some sort of error). Yes, processing speed on native A5 or dbf files may be faster, so this may be a requirement later, as my data volumes grow, but for now, I just want to link and not have to worry about the associated logic.
Setting up a DSN with a text driver only seems to fix the local machine issue, would have to be replicated for each text file, and would also have to be replicated on each end-user's system.
Thanks for any help in search terminology or a solution.
Brent
I would like to build an A5 front-end to expose the data in these files to my customers for reporting and analysis. I would prefer to have a separate back-end application that manages the data. However, due to their varying frequency of updates, I don't want to import them, rather just link to the files knowing their defined formats, create various sets for reports, and then provide various reports and functionality through forms and coding.
The problem is, I cannot find the ability to "link" to a text file with A5v9.
I've searched the application help, online help, and this forum. Maybe my terminology is incorrect, as is often the case with different but similar applications/products. I've searched for various incantations of the terms "link", "delimited", "text", "external", and "file".
Why don't I just import them? The text files are natively smaller in size. I see no need to import them as tables and create dbfs, and then have to keep or delete the text files each time. It's extra time and processing, plus requires more logic in case the latest replacement file never happened to appear (some sort of error). Yes, processing speed on native A5 or dbf files may be faster, so this may be a requirement later, as my data volumes grow, but for now, I just want to link and not have to worry about the associated logic.
Setting up a DSN with a text driver only seems to fix the local machine issue, would have to be replicated for each text file, and would also have to be replicated on each end-user's system.
Thanks for any help in search terminology or a solution.
Brent
Comment