INTEXT Process

To access this process:

Enter "INTEXT" into the Command Line and press <ENTER>.
Display the Find Command screen, locate INTEXT and click Run.

See this process in the Command Table.

Process Overview

Import a text file with a known data definition to create a Datamine binary file (either .dm or .dmx, depending on your current default file format.

A data definition can either be determined from the header of the imported file, or from an existing Datamine binary file. If a separate file (INDD) is used, INTEXT attempts to calculate the type and (in the case of alphanumerics) size of the columns of the output file.

Several parameters are available to control the conversion process.

INTEXT is also used by the Text Importer tool.

Note: Data records may not start with the character "!". This is because the ! symbol acts as the end-of-data character. However, macro files, where the command starts with !, may be read if a blank is inserted prior to the ! symbol.

Input Files

Name	Description	I/O Status	Required	Type
INDD	File containing Data Definition.	Input	No	Table

Output Files

Name	I/O Status	Required	Type	Description
OUT	Output	Yes	Table	File to be created.

Parameters

Name	Description	Required	Default	Range	Values
COLUMN	Define the column separator in the input text file. Comma (default). Space. Tab. Semi colon. Colon.	No	1	1,5	1,2,3,4,5
DELIMIT	Treat consecutive delimiters as one. 0: Off. 1: On.	No	0	0,1	0,1
DECIMAL	Specify whether numbers use decimal points or commas. 0: Dot 1: Comma.	No	0	0,1	0,1
ABSENT	Character string or number that defines absent data.	No	"-"	Undefined	Undefined
CEILING	Character string or number that defines ceiling data.	No	"+"	Undefined	Undefined
INCRMNT	Only read every 1 of INCRMNT records / rows, starting from STARTROW.	No	1	Undefined	Undefined
HEADER	Row number in input text file that contains the field names. If no header is set, then the input data defintion (INDD) is required (see also ALLCOL). 0 or negative is treated as no header.	No	1	Undefined	Undefined
ALLCOL	Only used if INDD is specified. Import all columns even if these do not exist in Data Definition. 0: Only import columns if they occur in Data Definition provided by INDD (see also HEADER). 1: Import all columns in input text file.	No	0	0,1	0,1
NSCAN	Number of records to read to auto detect field types and lengths. Not used if IN is defined and HEADER is 0 or negative. If 0, let the process determine the appropriate number of rows to scan according to the file size.	No	0	Undefined	Undefined
STARTROW	Row number in input text file of the first record to import.	No	1	Undefined	Undefined
ENDROW	Row number in input text file of the last record to import. Default=+, i.e. read all rows. 0 or negative will also be treated as read all rows.	No	"+"	Undefined	Undefined
UPCASE	Force all field names to be upper case. Note that if the data definition or input file contains multiple variations of a field name case, and UPCASE = 1, the import will stop. 0: Use case from text (default). 1: Convert to upper case.	No	0	Undefined	Undefined

Example

In the following example, the CSV file for conversion does not contain a header file and the first row is blank, hence a separate data definition is required (INDD) and the data rows start at line 2 (STARTROW):

!INTEXT &INDD(my_dd),

&SETTINGS(dd_settings),

&OUT(convertedDMfile),

@STARTROW=2.0