Importing and exporting data – Rice Lake TransAct 3.5 User Manual
Page 65
Importing and Exporting Data
Admin
66
Version 3.5
Importing and Exporting Data
TransAct provides utilities for importing and exporting transaction information. Before importing or
exporting can be completed, definition files need to be created. A definition file tells the program what
information is to be imported or exported and how it is formatted.
Definition files are created using any text editor, like
Notepad
. The files must be saved with a
.gid
extension and stored in the TransAct installation directory. The first line of the definition file identifies
the database table to be used. Currently, only data from the
Transaction Table
of the database can be
imported and exported. Each line of the definition file is formatted into seven comma delimited sections.
Table 3. Export/Import Definition File Delimiters.
Sample definition file
TransactionTable
Ticket Number
, Number ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Account
, Number ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Truck Number
, Character ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Material Code
, Character ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
DateTime Out
, Character ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Weight In
, Number ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Weight Out
, Number ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Net Weight
, Number ,
,
,
, COMMA ,
Charge
, Number ,
,2
,
, NL
,
Each line must contain seven comma delimited fields. A comma must still be present for unused fields.
Spaces have been added between each field to line up the columns and make the file easier to read.
Field Name
Valid transaction database field names (listed later).
Field Type
Character, Number or Boolean.
Field Length
Length of field that will be written to the export data file. The number of characters
extracted from an import file.
Decimals
Used to import numeric data fields with an implied decimal point. For example, if
decimals is 2 and the imported field is 15025, the data is converted to 150.25.
Fixed Value
Used to place a fixed value in an export data file field or to assign a fixed value to
a database field when importing.
Delimiter
Character used to delimit the field. These names can be used for the following
predefined delimiters:
TAB (tab)
NL (new line)
SPACE (space)
COMMA (comma)
CR (carriage return)
LF (line feed)
Any character can be used for a delimiter field by entering the character’s
numeric ANSI code. For example, the ANSI code for a space is 32 and a tab is 9.
Multi-delimiters
Yes or No. Used to import files that have multiple delimiter characters between
fields. The default value for this field is No.