Strip Space in asc file

[carterweslock]

I have a CSV file that I want to import. When I got the data files my import routine worked worked great. Now the supplier of data has added a blank space before the first data element.
looked like:
"element1","element2"
now
_"element1",element2" where _ repesents a blank space

I know that in VB I can write a routine to import the whole line as a character string, strip off the blank and write that back out to a new file. I have spoken with great supplier of data and they can not change their output file back to a spaceless one.
1) Is there an easy way to do the same with Alpha?
2) Are any of the paramaters in the import.??? capable of fixing this? IE: .skip_bytes I've found that this works for the first record but not the rest.

Thanks in advance for your help

Carter

[Vince McGinnis]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Carter,

Are you Importing using the "Import Character Separated ASCII" Card? If so, check under the Import Card's properties, there is an option to "Strip Leading Blanks".

Or, if you're running the import in Xbasic, look for the "Strip Leading Blanks" property to set.

[CALocklin]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Carter,

Like your VB suggestion, you can do the same thing in A5.
- Open the original file for reading using the File.open() command. (I'll call the file pointer "fpo".)
- Create a new file for writing. (...file pointer "fpn".)
- Read the line from the orig. file:
ltext = fpo.read_line()
- Get the line length (this may not be necessary)
llen = len( ltext )
- Write the string to the new file using the Substr() command to cut off the first character:
fpn.write_line( substr( ltext, 2, llen ))

This should be very fast once the script is working.

Cal

[whanigsberg]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

I just learned something.

The table.import method has a "remove leading blanks" parameter. See the documentation.

Bill

[carterweslock]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Running it in Xbasic code looks like:

import.type = 0
import.names = "none"
import.file = filename
import.db = a_db_current_path + "transaction_import.dbf"
import.skip_lines = 0
import.skip_bytes = 0
import.field_sep = ","
import.record_sep = ""
import.text_qualifier = "" "
import.record_len = 252
import.rem_blanks = .t.
import.fields = 19
import.field1 = "Group,c,0,8,0"
import.field2 = "Suffix,c,1,3,0"

and so until
import()

If I understand what the remove blanks option does, it will remove any leading blanks inside a set of quotes. I've tried is set both ways and have not seen any difference.

[carterweslock]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Thanks, I'll try this.

[CALocklin]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

I may be reading it wrong but I think the problem here is that the leading blank isn't even in a field. I think it actually precedes the first field.

[carterweslock]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Correct.

[whanigsberg]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

In that case couldn't we just manually edit the offset? Never had to try this but would be easy enough.

Bill

[David Sander]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

Carter,

If you import the current file with your current process, where does the blank end up appearing? If its at the front of a field you can probably subject the field to a trim process on importing. Where you getting a right shift of the data in the columns from this?

Dave

[carterweslock]

RE: Strip Space in asc file

The space would come before the data element and include the first set of " marks. i.e.: {_"123} where _ is the space. Only the first data element was affected. You can recreate the problem. All you need to do is edit a ascii/csv data file to include an extra space before your data string. Try to import it and see what happens. I worked on Cal's suggestion. It works. I want to thank everyone for their help. The brain was getting a little mushy from all of the heat over the new version...