ISAMIO.EXE /I Imports ASCII Text File into Basic ISAM File (64495)

MORE INFORMATION

The syntax for importing (converting) an ASCII file into an ISAM database using the ISAMIO utility is as follows:

   ISAMIO /I ASCIIFIL.TXT DATBASE.MDB TABLNAME SPECFIL.TXT [options]

ASCIIFIL.TXT can have two formats. It can appear in a fixed-width format where certain data appears in fixed columns of the file. The ISAMIO /F option is required for a file of this type. The file can also be comma delimited with string data enclosed in double quotation marks. In this format, blank spaces should not be used between the fields and the commas. If blank spaces are inserted between the commas and the data, an "Unable to Parse column xx of line xx" error may occur.

The DATBASE.MDB and TABLNAME are names of the ISAM database and table into which the ASCII file is to be imported. If DATBASE.MDB or TABLNAME doesn't already exist, PROISAMD support must be available to create them. A related ISAMIO.EXE error message is as follows:

ISAM command is not available" (in 7.00 or 7.10)

This error message displays when PROISAM capability is currently installed but PROISAMD capability is needed (to create a new ISAM database or table). To avoid this error, do one of the following:

If you ran SETUP.EXE with the "ISAM Routines in TSR" option, load PROISAMD.EXE instead of PROISAM.EXE. -or-
If you ran SETUP with "ISAM Routines in LIB, Support Database Access Only" option, run SETUP again and choose "ISAM Routines in LIB, Support Database Creation and Access."

If the database and table already exist and you use the ISAMIO /A (Append) option, you can use either PROISAM or PROISAMD.

SPECFIL.TXT is the file that ISAMIO uses to specify the data type and size for each column of a table. Each line of the file relates to a column of the table. The format is as follows:

[fixedwidthsize,][type,[size],[columnname]]

The fields in SPECFIL.TXT can be separated by spaces or commas. The "fixedwidthsize" field is valid only if the /F option is used. It just specifies the size of the field to read from ASCIIFIL.TXT.

The "type" field in SPECFIL.TXT is one of the indexable ISAM data TYPEs. In the case of arrays, user-defined TYPEs, and strings longer than 255 characters, the type field must be specified as binary. If the type field is specified as variabletext (vt) or variablestring (vs), the "size" field must appear. The size field for string data tells ISAMIO the size of the field to put the string data into. The size field can be smaller, which truncates input data, or larger, which allows a larger string to be input later. These two types are the same except that variabletext (vt) is case insensitive while variablestring (vs) is case sensitive. Note that Basic PDS' use of string data is case insensitive (that is, all comparisons made are case insensitive). Therefore, even if variablestring is specified, it is converted to variabletext.

The "columnname" field in SPECFIL.TXT is any valid ISAM column name, but it is ignored if the /C option is used.

The ISAMIO options that you can use for importing a file (/I) are /C, /F, and /A. The following table describes these options:

Option     Description
------     -----------
/A         Tells ISAMIO that you are importing ASCIIFIL.TXT and
           appending it to an existing table (TABLNAME). If /A is
           specified, column names cannot appear in ASCIIFIL.TXT
           (the /C option), only data. If you use the /A and /C
           options together, the following error message displays:
              APPEND &amp; COLUMN_NAMES conflicts

           The SPECFIL.TXT file cannot appear on a command line that
           contains the /A option. ISAMIO uses the format of the
           existing table that is being appended to. If SPECFIL.TXT
           is specified along with the /A option, the following error
           message displays:

              APPEND and specfile conflicts
           If the table does not exist within the specified database
           (DATBASE.MDB), ISAMIO displays the following error message:

              Can't Open Table "TABLNAME"

/C         Tells ISAMIO that the ISAM table's column names should be
           taken from the first line of ASCIIFIL.TXT. These column
           names need to be separated by a space, comma, or any
           combination thereof. If a column name is not consistent
           with the ISAM naming convention, ISAM displays the error
           message "Invalid Name." If this option is not specified
           when importing a new table, ISAMIO looks at SPECFIL.TXT
           for the column names. If ISAMIO doesn't find a column name
           in SPECFIL.TXT, it displays an error message that tells
           you that you must specify a column name in SPECFIL.TXT.


/F         Tells ISAMIO that the text to be imported is of a
           fixed-width format (already in columns of a certain
           length). The size of the fixed-width format must be
           specified in the first column of SPECFIL.TXT. If the /F
           option is not used, the data in the fields of ASCIIFIL.TXT
           are assumed to be delimited by commas, with string data
           enclosed in double quotation marks. If you use /F and one
           of the fields is shorter than the specified length, you
           will receive the error message "Unable to parse column xx
           of line xx," where "column" refers to the column of a
           table.

Depending on how you ran SETUP.EXE, the ISAMIO.EXE utility will be built either to run as a stand-alone program or to require the terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) form of ISAM. A separate article, found by querying on the following words, discusses this topic:

SETUP and builds and ISAMIO

When you run ISAMIO and receive one of the following error messages, you must install the PROISAM.EXE or PROISAMD.EXE TSR program if you are running MS-DOS; if you are running OS/2, you must put PROISAM.DLL or PROISAMD.DLL in your LIBPATH:

ISAMIO: ISAM TSR is not loaded" (in 7.00 under MS-DOS)
ISAMIO : error: ISAM DLL not found" (in 7.10 under MS-DOS or OS/2)

The following are some examples of importing different ASCII files:

Example 1

The contents of ASCIIFIL.TXT are as follows:

   CustomerName  Address  CustomerNumber
   Huck Finn   1606 Crest Dr. 3490
   Joe Henry   893 S. Scenic   5620
   Billy Bob   143 Maple St    0894

The contents of SPECFIL.TXT are as follows (where Basic PDS ISAM treats vt and vs the same way):

   12,vt,20
   16,vs,16
   4,integer

Invoke ISAMIO.EXE in MS-DOS as follows:

   ISAMIO /I ASCIIFIL.TXT CUSTOMER.MDB TABLE1 SPECFIL.TXT /C/F

Example 2

The contents of ASCIIFIL.TXT are as follows:

   "Huck Finn","1606 Crest Dr.",3490
   "Joe Henry","893 S. Scenic",5620
   "Billy Bob","143 Maple St",0894

The contents of SPECFIL.TXT are as follows:

   vt,20,CustomerName
   vs,16,Address
   integer,CustomerNumber

(No fixedwidthsize is used as the first item in each line in SPECFIL.TXT because we don't use ISAMIO /F in this example.) Invoke ISAMIO.EXE in MS-DOS as follows:

   ISAMIO /I ASCIIFIL.TXT CUSTOMER.MDB TABLE2 SPECFIL.TXT

Example 3: Appending a File to an Existing ISAM Table

The following example shows how to append an ASCII file to an existing ISAM table: The contents of APENDFIL.TXT are as follows:

   "John Doe","1387 Main Blvd.",2490

Note that a SPECFIL.TXT file is not used when appending a file to the ISAM table. Invoke ISAMIO.EXE as follows:

   ISAMIO /I APENDFIL.TXT CUSTOMER.MDB TABLE2 /A