Import space delimited file with quotes

I'm playing with the trial version of Filemaker Pro 9 and am basically
trying to reproduce the same thing I've been doing with MS SQL to get
a feel for the type of thing the product can do.

What I want to do is import a text file which contains space delimited
fields and text wrapped in quotes. I don't think FM can do this using
the File>Import options so I thought I could import each line into a
single column in a table then parse the record to extract each field
into a second table. But FM doesn't seem to keep the quotes on the
imported data!

This seems very basic functionality to me so I would be surprised if
FM can't easily handle this. Does anyone know the how it can be done?

Thanks.

Re: Import space delimited file with quotes

In article
<7a4c701c-c4db-43c2-b5dc-336fd48f6db1@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
stephen wrote:

> I'm playing with the trial version of Filemaker Pro 9 and am basically
> trying to reproduce the same thing I've been doing with MS SQL to get
> a feel for the type of thing the product can do.
>
> What I want to do is import a text file which contains space delimited
> fields and text wrapped in quotes. I don't think FM can do this using
> the File>Import options so I thought I could import each line into a
> single column in a table then parse the record to extract each field
> into a second table. But FM doesn't seem to keep the quotes on the
> imported data!
>
> This seems very basic functionality to me so I would be surprised if
> FM can't easily handle this. Does anyone know the how it can be done?
>
> Thanks.

FileMaker can't import space delimited text as separate field data. The
usual formats are Tab or Comma delimted.

FileMaker does import quote characters into a Text or Number field from
a text file. For example, a text file containing lines like:
"test text 1" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
"test text 2" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
"test text 3" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
"test text 4" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
"test text 5" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"

can be imported with the quote characters intact, giving five separate
records with each line is imported into one Text field, from which you
could parse the individual values.

BUT,
it must be a TEXT file (ie. ".txt" suffix or no suffix) and a Text
field.

If you try to import from a comma delimited CSV file (ie. ".csv"
suffix), for example, then FileMaker will remove the first two quote
characters from the example lines above.
ie.
The imported data would be:
test text 4 "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

Re: Import space delimited file with quotes

On Dec 22, 10:18=A0pm, Helpful Harry
wrote:
> In article
> <7a4c701c-c4db-43c2-b5dc-336fd48f6...@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
> stephen wrote:
> > I'm playing with the trial version of Filemaker Pro 9 and am basically
> > trying to reproduce the same thing I've been doing with MS SQL to get
> > a feel for the type of thing the product can do.
>
> > What I want to do is import a text file which contains space delimited
> > fields and text wrapped in quotes. I don't think FM can do this using
> > the File>Import options so I thought I could import each line into a
> > single column in a table then parse the record to extract each field
> > into a second table. But FM doesn't seem to keep the quotes on the
> > imported data!
>
> > This seems very basic functionality to me so I would be surprised if
> > FM can't easily handle this. Does anyone know the how it can be done?
>
> > Thanks.
>
> FileMaker can't import space delimited text as separate field data. The
> usual formats are Tab or Comma delimted.
>
> FileMaker does import quote characters into a Text or Number field from
> a text file. For example, a text file containing lines like:
> =A0 =A0 "test text 1" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
> =A0 =A0 "test text 2" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
> =A0 =A0 "test text 3" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
> =A0 =A0 "test text 4" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
> =A0 =A0 "test text 5" "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"
>
> can be imported with the quote characters intact, giving five separate
> records with each line is imported into one Text field, from which you
> could parse the individual values.
>
> BUT,
> it must be a TEXT file (ie. ".txt" suffix or no suffix) and a Text
> field.
>
> If you try to import from a comma delimited CSV file (ie. ".csv"
> suffix), for example, then FileMaker will remove the first two quote
> characters from the example lines above.
> ie.
> =A0 =A0 =A0The imported data would be:
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0test text 4 "for importing" "space" "delimited" "data file"=

>
> Helpful Harry =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0
> Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships =A0;o=
)

Great, thanks. I'll give it a go.