Text kvalificator in import of external data

[jj]

Hi

I wonder why there is both a field separator option and a text kvalificator
option when using the import guide in Access - Can anybody explain me why.

Once I recived a semicolonm separated file, which had also the "" as
separator, and here I used the text kvalificator, I have just never
understood why it was like that?

thx
jj

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

JJ,

The field separator and the text qualifier are two different things.

The former helps Access identify fields in character-separated files (as
opposed to fixed width files); the separator can be any of a number of
characters, tab, semicolon and comma being the most commonly used ones;
the setting in the import wizard is required so Access knows which one
it is every time.

The text qualifier is used to denote text fields, as opposed to numeric.
It doesn't always exist, and whether it's used or not is mostly
dependent on the system / software the text file comes from (under some
operating systems it's mandatory). In its absence, Access will try to
"guess" if a field is text or numeric, based on the data, but may fail
if a particular field contains only numeric characters in some records,
but also alpha ones in others, and will guess wrong in the case of, say,
telephone numbers or zip codes, which may seem to be numeric, but should
be treated as text. Using a text qualifier will rectify those problems.

HTH,
Nikos