We receive a flat file that is delimited from our third-party client.
Row Delimiter = LF;
Column Delimiter = Tab
The file has 8 columns.
The delimited formatting in the file is correct for the most part except for three records where the 6th column splits and the record continues into the second row. There are two tab column delimiters after the column breaks into the second row.
We use SSIS to insert the records from the file into our DB and the ETL breaks because of this inconsistent formatting.
We had to manually tweak the column so that the job runs successfully.
Is there a way to correct the formatting issue in SSIS? I need help with writing a parser to correct these abnormal records in the file before inserting them.
Normal Row:
Problematic rows:
To fix the file structure, you should read each row as one large column DT_STR (4000). Then you should use two script components: the first one to fix the erroneous rows, and the second to split each row into separate columns before inserting the data into the destination database.
You can check my answer on the following question for a step-by-step guide: SSIS reading LF as terminator when its set as CRLF
Related
Alright so I am not sure how to go about this, I have files that will be coming in a format like this that I need to read into a SQL Server database:
As you can see, it is "~" delimited and it contains no columns names at all. I will have multiple files like this incoming every couple of hours and I have the entire SSIS set up ready besides the part where I actually need to read the data because I am confused on how to handle this delimiter format that other department came up with.
As you can see if I specify the column delimiter just to be "~" it works fine
until it reaches that point where the row ends at which point there is this unnecessary row of "~" that starts and it confuses the connection manager into thinking these are separate columns, creating a bunch of empty columns
I can't simply delete all empty columns because some legit columns can sometimes come in as empty. The only mediocre solution I found so far is to go to advanced options in file connection manager and manually delete all of the columns I don't need. But the reason this will not work at all is because next file I will get might contain more rows than this one and it will still think that "~" after every data row is a column delimiter when in reality it is just a row separator. The number of columns however will always remain static in each file.
Currently I receive a daily file of around 750k rows and each row has a 3 character identifier at the start.
For each identifier, the number of columns can change but are specific to the identifier (e.g. SRH will always have 6 columns, AAA will always have 10 and so on).
I would like to be able to automate this file into an SQL table through SSIS.
This solution is currently built in MSACCESS using VBA just looping through recordsets using a CASE statement, it then writes a record to the relevant table.
I have been reading up on BULK INSERT, BCP (w/Format File) and Conditional Split in SSIS however I always seem to get stuck at the first hurdle of even loading the file in as SSIS errors due to variable column layouts.
The data file is pipe delimited and looks similar to the below.
AAA|20180910|POOL|OPER|X|C
SRH|TRANS|TAB|BARKING|FORM|C|1.026
BHP|1
*BPI|10|16|18|Z
BHP|2
*BPI|18|21|24|A
(* I have added the * to show that these are child records of the parent record, in this case BHP can have multiple BPI records underneath it)
I would like to be able to load the TXT file into a staging table, and then I can write the TSQL to loop through the records and parse them to their relevant tables (AAA - tblAAA, SRH - tblSRH...)
I think you should read each row as one column of type DT_WSTR and length = 4000 then you need to implement the same logic written using vba within a Script component (VB.NET / C#), there are similar posts that can give you some insights:
SSIS ragged file not recognized CRLF
SSIS reading LF as terminator when its set as CRLF
How to load mixed record type fixed width file? And also file contain two header
SSIS Flat File - CSV formatting not working for multi-line fileds
how to skip a bad row in ssis flat file source
I have a simple data flow task. It's a OLE DB Source to Flat File Destination setup.
One table, one column. Everything works great except there is a trailing comma (column delimiter) in the flat file when I'm done. Why is it putting an extra delimiter after the column as if there were another column?
Output
dog,
cat,
camel,
moose,
How do I get rid of that trailing delimiter?
Are you sure the row delimiter is not also a comma
Using SQL 2008 R2, I've created an SSIS Package that rips through a flat file and imports them into a SQL table.
If any record in the data file does not contain all the required fields, that record should be skipped in the import process. All skipped records should be emailed to me when the package completes.
Here's the data file structure:
123|ABC|Y|Y
784
456|DEF|Y|Y
789|GHI|Y|N
812||Y|N
...
So, in this scenario, I would want the 1st, 3rd, and 4th record to be imported, and the 2nd and 5th record to be skipped and emailed.
I tried testing this out as is, and since it looks for a pipe delimiter, it reads the second line together with the third as:
784456|DEF|Y|Y
I'm about 3 days old working with SSIS, so if someone can assist me in accomplishing this task, I'd be grateful.
How big are the files? One way, is to use a staging table. NOT a temporary table.. The staging table is a physical table that retains its existence in the database. You dump all records there, then insert the good data into the production/main table, then export the bad rows into a file which you can append to the sendmail task..
(then you can truncate the staging table for the next interval/run/loop/file)
Another way would be to use conditional splits, and then set each row to a variable which then has a format applied to it, appending a delimiter other than a pipe, then into the export file.
Since it's merging the second line with the third, it sounds like either the row delimiter is incorrect on line 3 or it's not set correctly in the connection manager. I'd take a look at the file in Notepad ++ (or a text editor that will expose hidden characters like Cr and Lf) and verify that the row delimiter is consistent for each row and that it matches what's been set in the connection manager.
Once the row delimiter issue is straightened out, you can separate the erroneous records with a conditional split. Under condition, type [YourColumnName] == "" and under Output name, type Error. Name the default output name "Correct". Now map the "Correct" output to your table and map the "Error" output to a flat file, script component, table, or whatever format you want the errors to go to.
I have a CSV file where there is a header row and data rows in the same file.
I want to get information from both rows during the same load.
What is the easiest way to do this?
i.e File Example - Import.CSV
2,11-Jul-2011
Mr,Bob,Smith,1-Jan-1984
Ms,Jane,Doe,23-Apr-1981
In the first row, there a a count of the number of rows and the date of transmission.
In the second and subsequent rows is the actual data, in this Title, FirstName, LastName, Birthdate
SQL Server Integration Services Conditional Split Transformation should do it.
I wonder what would You do with that info in the pipeline. However, there is only one solution to read it in one pass (take a look at notes/limitations at the end):
Create a data flow
Put File source component and set it the way You want
Add script task to count the number of rows
Put conditional split transformation where condition is mycounter=0
One path from condition split will be the first row of file (mycounter=0) and the other path will be the rest of the rows (2 in your example).
Note#1: file source can set only one metadata for each column in the source. This means that if your first column of data is string (Mr, Ms, ...) then You have to set it as string data type in the source. Otherwise, if You set it as integer (DT_Ix) it
will fail as soon as it encounters row with string data (Mr, Ms, ...) in the first column of file. This applies to all columns, not just the first one.
Note #2: SSIS will see only the number of columns You told it to. This means that You have to have the same number of columns in EACH row. Otherwise, You have ragged csv file and You need to take another approach - search the Internet. But those solutions also require different layout of csv.
Answers in the following links explain how to load parent-child data from a flat file into an SQL Server database when both parent and child rows exist in the same file next to each other.
How do I split flat file data and load into parent-child tables in database?
How to load a flat file with header and detail data into a database using SSIS package?