As promised it is time to pick more things that I have improved for NAV 2016. Still on the Data Exchange, and looking at file import. We can import a text file; fixed and delimited, with different encoding.
By using Codeunit 1240 for the External Data Handling action we are able to get any text file into the Data Exchange framework. It will simply prompt the user for a local file name.
Microsoft shipped Codeunit 1241 to read a flat file. I decided to change that a bit with two enhancements. First, I wanted to be able to read a delimited file and second, I wanted to be able to use different encoding.
The Codeunit name is “Fixed File Import” and just the name change show the difference. My version is named “Fixed/Delimited File Import”.
There are settings in the Data Exchange that I wanted to be able to support.
The standard Codeunit only reads the MSDOS File Encoding with this code
OnRun(VAR Rec : Record "Data Exch.") "File Content".CREATEINSTREAM(ReadStream); DataExchDef.GET("Data Exch. Def Code"); LineNo := 1; REPEAT ReadLen := ReadStream.READTEXT(ReadText); IF ReadLen > 0 THEN ParseLine(ReadText,Rec,LineNo,SkippedLineNo); UNTIL ReadLen = 0;
Changed
WITH DataExchDef DO BEGIN GET("Data Exch. Def Code"); CASE "File Encoding" OF "File Encoding"::"MS-DOS" : "File Content".CREATEINSTREAM(ReadStream,TEXTENCODING::MSDos); "File Encoding"::WINDOWS : "File Content".CREATEINSTREAM(ReadStream,TEXTENCODING::Windows); "File Encoding"::"UTF-8" : "File Content".CREATEINSTREAM(ReadStream,TEXTENCODING::UTF8); "File Encoding"::"UTF-16" : "File Content".CREATEINSTREAM(ReadStream,TEXTENCODING::UTF16); END; LineNo := 1; REPEAT ReadLen := ReadStream.READTEXT(ReadText); IF ReadLen > 0 THEN ParseLine(ReadText,Rec,LineNo,SkippedLineNo); UNTIL ReadLen = 0; END;
to read the four different text encoding that are supported by the Data Exchange Setup.
The PharseLine section in the standard Codeunit has this simple loop to read the fixed file.
StartPosition := 1; REPEAT DataExchField.InsertRecXMLField(DataExch."Entry No.",LineNo,DataExchColumnDef."Column No.",'', COPYSTR(Line,StartPosition,DataExchColumnDef.Length),DataExchLineDef.Code); StartPosition += DataExchColumnDef.Length; UNTIL DataExchColumnDef.NEXT = 0; LineNo += 1;
Extending this and adding two functions gives me the ability to import both fixed and variable text file.
StartPosition := 1; REPEAT CASE DataExchDef."File Type" OF DataExchDef."File Type"::"Fixed Text" : BEGIN DataExchField.InsertRecXMLField(DataExch."Entry No.",LineNo,DataExchColumnDef."Column No.",'', COPYSTR(Line,StartPosition,DataExchColumnDef.Length),DataExchLineDef.Code); StartPosition += DataExchColumnDef.Length; END; DataExchDef."File Type"::"Variable Text" : BEGIN DataExchField.InsertRecXMLField(DataExch."Entry No.",LineNo,DataExchColumnDef."Column No.",'', ExtractFirstDelimitedPart(Line,GetSeparator),DataExchLineDef.Code); END; ELSE ERROR(FileTypeNotSupported,DataExchDef."File Type"); END; UNTIL DataExchColumnDef.NEXT = 0; LineNo += 1; LOCAL GetSeparator() Separator : Text[1] WITH DataExchDef DO CASE "Column Separator" OF "Column Separator"::Tab : Separator[1] := 9; "Column Separator"::Semicolon : Separator := ';'; "Column Separator"::Comma : Separator := ','; "Column Separator"::Space : Separator := ' '; END; LOCAL ExtractFirstDelimitedPart(VAR Line : Text;Separator : Text[1]) FirstPart : Text SeparatorPosition := STRPOS(Line,Separator); IF SeparatorPosition > 0 THEN BEGIN FirstPart := COPYSTR(Line,1,SeparatorPosition - 1); IF SeparatorPosition + 1 <= STRLEN(Line) THEN Line := COPYSTR(Line,SeparatorPosition + 1) ELSE Line := ''; END ELSE BEGIN FirstPart := Line; Line := ''; END;
More to come. Stay tuned…