Capabilities
The following lists describes the capabilities of the fielded text standard to handle structures and formats which are used in text files.
- Fields separated by a delimiter character
CSV files have fields separated by delimiters -
- Fixed Length Fields
Some text files store values using fixed length fields. Since the length of each field is predetermined, these files do not use delimiters to specify when each field ends. Fielded Text supports fixed length fields and lets you specify the width, truncation and padding on a field by field basis.
- Mixed Fixed Length and Delimiter separated fields in a line
Fielded Text even supports files which use both Delimited fields and Fixed Length fields in the same line.
- Quoted Fields (Optional or Explicit)
Often text files surround field values with a quote character -
Fielded Text allows you to specify whether or fields are quoted on a field by field basis. It even allows you to specify that a field is optionally quoted in which case it will determine whether an individual value is quoted and handle it accordingly. You can also specify which character is used as the quoted character however this applies to all fields.
- New Lines in Quotes
Sometimes field values contain New Line characters (eg Line Feed character). This can occur for example, if a field value contains paragraphs of text. Fielded Text lets you specify whether field values are allowed to contain New Line characters.
- Automatic New Line detection or specified New Line character
There are different conventions for ending a line in a text file. Fielded Text automatically detects what type of convention is being used to end a line. Alternatively, you can explicitly specify which character specifies the end of a line.
- Termination of last line in file
Some systems expect the last line of a text file to not include the End of Line character(s). FieldedText can specify how the last line should be terminated.
- Comments
Some text files include comment lines. These lines should be ignored when parsing as they do not contain values. Fielded Text lets you specify a line comment character. Lines beginning with this character are treated as comments.
- Ignoring Blank Lines
Sometimes text files contain blank lines which should be ignored. Fielded Text lets you specify if blank lines are to be ignored.
- Ignoring extra characters/fields in lines
Fielded Text can specify that a line is to be parsed until the required values have been extracted for all fields expected in the a line. Any extra characters after that in the line, are ignored. This allows new fields to be added to a text file without "breaking" existing software which parses that text file.
Alternatively, Fielded Text can specify that there should not be any extra characters after the last field in a line.
- Incomplete records
In some circumstances, a line may not include all the fields specified in a record. For example, a record may have repeating fields at the end up to a maximum amount. FieldedText can specify that a line does not have to include all its fields.
- Handling language cultures
Different languages have different conventions in how to display numbers and how to compare text. For example, in English, a period (.) is used to designate a decimal point whereas in German, a comma (,) is used.
Fielded Text lets you specify the culture to be used when parsing or generating text files. The conventions appropriate for that language will then be used.
- Multiple Heading Lines (both delimited and fixed length)
Text Files sometimes include heading lines which provide headings for each of the fields. Fielded Text supports both parsing and generating heading lines.
- Substitutions (escape sequences)
Substitutions allow strings or characters to represented in a file with tokens. They are similar to Escape Sequences in the 'C' language; a substitution character (escape) character identifies a substitution and the next character (the token) specifies what string should be substituted. These are very useful for including non-
Fielded Text supports several types of substitutions -
- Embedded (Stuffed) Quote Characters
Some quoted field values also contain the quote character. One way of embedding the quote character is to include 2 successive quote characters to represent one quote character (stuffed quote character). Fielded Text supports stuffed embedding of quote characters.
- Boolean, DateTime, Decimal, Float, Integer and String fields
Fields can hold values with different data types. Fielded Text supports the following data types:
- Boolean
- DateTime
- Decimal (for working with currencies)
- Float (up to Double range and precision)
- Integer (up to 64 bits)
- String
- Null fields
Sometimes a field value is undefined. Fielded Text supports several methods for detecting and specifying Null field values.
- Constant fields
In some files, a field always has to have the same value. Fielded Text supports declaring fields as constants and allows the constant to be specified. If a field is declared as a constant, then all values for that field must match the constant specified.
- Specify format and styles of fields
Booleans, datetimes, and numbers can be formatted in many different ways in a text file. Fielded Text lets you specify the formatting and style of these data types, on a field by field basis.
- Field Heading Constraints
Fielded Text supports constraints on field headings. These include:
- Check that the heading for each field is as expected.
- Use the heading as the name of a field.
- Lines can have different sequences of fields based on the value of “key” fields
Some files have can have lines with different sets of fields. Typically, one of the fields is used as a key. The value a key field contains, determines the sequence of fields for the rest of the line. Fielded Text supports these types of files with its 'Sequences' capability.