SDF files.

[Frank Martin]

How do I import these into Access2003?

Regards, Frank

 

[Steve]

What are SDF files?

 

[Frank Martin]

What are SDF files?

These are chemical-data files, and are all news to me.

Wiki says something about them, and I want to import them
into Access:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_file_format#Other_Common_Formats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_table_file#SDF

Please help.

 

[Gina Whipp]

Frank,

Depending on which program is generating the file, can you export to a a
different format... one that Access will recognize?

--
Gina Whipp

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

 

[John W. Vinson]

These are chemical-data files, and are all news to me.

Wiki says something about them, and I want to import them
into Access:

IT's been a few years since I worked with them, but they're from Molecular
Design Ltd., now apparently acquired by someone else: http://www.symyx.com/.
This company apparently still offers ISIS/Base and ISIS/Draw, the software
that creates SDfiles. About the time we parted company they were finishing up
a project to store the data in ORACLE relational tables; I am pretty sure that
SDfiles are just an external file export format. See

http://www.symyx.com/products/software/decision-support/isis-base/index.jsp

or contact the company directly.

 

[Frank Martin]

Thank you. A commercial supplier of laboratory chemicals
offers product data for download in this format.

http://www.acros.com/DesktopModules...px?search_type=PartOfName&SearchString=iodide

(see bottom of site page)


Regards, Frank





in message

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Thank you. A commercial supplier of laboratory chemicals
offers product data for download in this format.

http://www.acros.com/DesktopModules...px?search_type=PartOfName&SearchString=iodide

(see bottom of site page)


Regards, Frank





in message

IT's been a few years since I worked with them, but
they're from Molecular
Design Ltd., now apparently acquired by someone else:
http://www.symyx.com/.
This company apparently still offers ISIS/Base and
ISIS/Draw, the software
that creates SDfiles. About the time we parted company
they were finishing up
a project to store the data in ORACLE relational tables; I
am pretty sure that
SDfiles are just an external file export format. See

http://www.symyx.com/products/software/decision-support/isis-base/index.jsp

or contact the company directly.

If you look at the bottom of the link you quote there is also an option
to export as Excel (you get a tab-separated text file). That could be
imported into Access much more readily than the SDF file, which (from
the Wikipedia link) appears to be a multi-line format, which takes real
work to convert into the sort of structure a relational database uses.

I've done quite a bit of this sort of data conversion, but I wouldn't
attempt to import the SDF format without having a definitive statement
of the data structure (including any optional elements). Even with the
tab-separated form, you'd need to be pretty sure what you are dealing
with. You might try downloading the "Excel" version and examining it in
Excel. If you're happy with the way it looks, and it seems consistent,
then try importing the file into Access, having set up a table design
first which matches the data type (number, string, etc) you want in each
field (Access will otherwise "guess", based on what it finds in the
first record). Trial-and-error is the usual approach! Try importing a
few fields at a time, adding further ones progressively, and look out
for the option in Access to save an "import specification" for reuse.

HTH

Phil, London

 

[John W. Vinson]

If you look at the bottom of the link you quote there is also an option
to export as Excel (you get a tab-separated text file). That could be
imported into Access much more readily than the SDF file, which (from
the Wikipedia link) appears to be a multi-line format, which takes real
work to convert into the sort of structure a relational database uses.

<shudder>

I was REALLY REALLY glad when Molecular Design offered the Excel export
option. I spent a bad couple of months back in 1992 or so trying to extract
data from sdfiles.

 

[Frank Martin]

Thank you. A commercial supplier of laboratory chemicals
offers product data for download in this format.

http://www.acros.com/DesktopModules...px?search_type=PartOfName&SearchString=iodide

(see bottom of site page)


Regards, Frank





"John W. Vinson" <jvinson@STOP_SPAM.WysardOfInfo.com>
wrote in message



If you look at the bottom of the link you quote there is
also an option to export as Excel (you get a tab-separated
text file). That could be imported into Access much more
readily than the SDF file, which (from the Wikipedia link)
appears to be a multi-line format, which takes real work
to convert into the sort of structure a relational
database uses.

I've done quite a bit of this sort of data conversion, but
I wouldn't attempt to import the SDF format without having
a definitive statement of the data structure (including
any optional elements). Even with the tab-separated form,
you'd need to be pretty sure what you are dealing with.
You might try downloading the "Excel" version and
examining it in Excel. If you're happy with the way it
looks, and it seems consistent, then try importing the
file into Access, having set up a table design first which
matches the data type (number, string, etc) you want in
each field (Access will otherwise "guess", based on what
it finds in the first record). Trial-and-error is the
usual approach! Try importing a few fields at a time,
adding further ones progressively, and look out for the
option in Access to save an "import specification" for
reuse.

HTH

Phil, London

Thanks. I hadn't thought of this. Though I have Excel on my
computer I never use it because I use Access.
Frank