importing notepad .txt file containing *'s previews as question marks

[sj]

Was importing a semicolon delimited text file created from
a mainframe dataset. The file had about thirty fields,
one containing a three-byte field with the value "*P*" in
some of the records. The preview window was displaying
all values as questions marks, and was unable to import.
This was happening in Access 2000 on multiple PC's. On
other PC's with Access '97, the file imports correctly.
The PC's are on a Windows NT platform. Replacing the
asterisks with spaces fixed the problem on 2000. Can
anyone share their knowled on this problem? Thank You

 

[John Nurick]

Hi SJ,

My first guess is that the mainframe file used something other than
CR+LF ( 0D 0H ) between lines. Access 97 is fairly relaxed about record
separators, but the more recent versions seem to insist on both CR and
LF, in that order.

Was importing a semicolon delimited text file created from
a mainframe dataset. The file had about thirty fields,
one containing a three-byte field with the value "*P*" in
some of the records. The preview window was displaying
all values as questions marks, and was unable to import.
This was happening in Access 2000 on multiple PC's. On
other PC's with Access '97, the file imports correctly.
The PC's are on a Windows NT platform. Replacing the
asterisks with spaces fixed the problem on 2000. Can
anyone share their knowled on this problem? Thank You

John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

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