Access97 Linked text lost

[Charles P. \(Pat\) Upshaw]

I have an Access97 database linking to a 4GB fixed width file. I can see
the data when I set up (and saved) the link specification, but when I open
the table there is no data there.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Charles P. (Pat) Upshaw

 

[John Nurick]

See my answer to your previous question. Also, if most fields in the
fixed width file are empty or nearly empty, it may help to convert it to
a delimited file, which will be much smaller. (I'd use the Perl unpack()
function for that).

 

[Charles P. \(Pat\) Upshaw]

John:

Where is your reply to my previous question?

Thanks,
Pat Upshaw

 

[John Nurick]

Delayed in the ether, perhaps. Here it is again:

Access isn't really designed to handle files of this size. But when you
say "it returns no data" do you mean that, or that it returns no data
before you get tired of waiting for it? The textfile driver can be very
slow with a big file.

I suggest you use textfile tools (e.g. Perl and the Windows ports of the
Gnu textutils downloadable from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net) to
extract the data you really need from the 4GB file (or to normalise it:
most big files seem not to be normalised) and give Access something
smaller to chew on.

John:

Where is your reply to my previous question?

Thanks,
Pat Upshaw