Problems with CSV ouput

tresearch

A few problems with the CSV output have already been identified here:

http://www.red-gate.com/messageboard/vi ... php?t=7427

And I second those, should there be any mechanism for doing so in your feature request system.

Another problem with the CSV output is when there are CRLF's within your data. Most import systems will interpret these as the end of the record, causing a corrupted or failed import of the file.

I would suggest having an option to specify the Record Separator character(s). Right now, it defaults to CRLF, but we could override it to use a different character or string (such as double-pipes or something like that).

The flat file import in SQL Server does allow for specifying an alternate record separator. Making this an option allows us, as the dba, to specify a string that works for us where we know our data won't contain that string (as opposed to CRLF where we may have data that has embedded CRLF characters).

This is one proposed solution. I'm open to others.

David

Eddie D

Thank you for your post into the forum and sorry for the delay in replying to you.

With reference to forum post - http://www.red-gate.com/messageboard/vi ... php?t=7427. I have added your forum post details to the following Feature Requests SDC-838 and SDC-839 that were created as a result of the above forum post.

I have submitted a new Feature Request for the development team to consider, the option to specify the Record Separator character. The reference for this Feature Request is SDC-887. Hopefully the requested feature will appear in the next or later version of SQL Data Compare.

Unfortunately I cannot guarantee that the request submitted will be successful and if approval is given what future version of SQL Data Compare the feature will appear.

Many Thanks
Eddie

tresearch

Thank you. For the time being, I've written a VBScript that reads in the records from the CSV files and creates SQL tables from them so I can use a standard reporting tool for generating reports.