Using the TEXT driver to read a file

[Guest]

I have a file that uses semi-colons to delimit fields. Currently the system
accesses this file via a File DSN set up using the ODBC control panel. The
downside to this approach is that the filename is saved into the DSN, and
we're getting new files with new names every day.

What I would like to do is set up the connection using a DSN-less connection
string. I found a couple of examples on the net, and have managed to get it
"sort of" working. I can loop through my code and see each line being read
in, and can pass in the filename in the select statement. The problem is that
it reads in an entire line as a single string -- it's ignoring the semi-colon
delimiters.

I'm guessing that I'm one option away from making it work. However there
doesn't seem to be any documentation on how to use these options in a
DSN-less system.

Any ideas?

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Carl Prothman has the most comprehensive site I know of for DSN-less
connection strings at http://www.able-consulting.com/ADO_Conn.htm . Look at
http://www.able-consulting.com/MDAC/ADO/Connection/ODBC_DSNLess.htm#ODBCDriverForText

There, Carl has a link to
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odbc/htm/odbcjetschema_ini_file.asp
for how to create a Schema.ini file to use when you have non-standard
requirements.

 

[Guest]

:

After looking over both resources, the answer is "you can't do that".
Specifically the delimiter character cannot be specified in a connection
string!