Comments for Daily Dose of Excel

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:27:05 +0000

No it was local. It was a few thousand pages.

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Nigel Heffernan

Nigel Heffernan — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:03:44 +0000

You may find that you can only read files with a .txt and .csv extension using the Jet 4.0 driver: by default, other file extensions are disabled, no matter what you specify in the Schema.

Here’s what to do if you’re trying to read a file with a .log extension and you prefer not to rename it:

' Can this workstation read .log files using the SQL text driver?
' An explanation of this procedure is available here:
' http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974559.aspx

Dim strFileKey As String
Dim strExt As String
Dim objShell As Object ' As IWshRuntimeLibrary.WshShell '
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") ' New IWshRuntimeLibrary.WshShell
'
If objShell Is Nothing Then
Shell "Regsvr32.exe /s wshom.ocx", vbHide
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
End If

If Not objShell Is Nothing Then
strFileKey = objShell.RegRead("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Text\DisabledExtensions")
If strFileKey <> "" Then

strExt = "log"

If InStr(1, strFileKey, strExt, vbTextCompare) < 1 Then
objShell.RegWrite _
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Text\DisabledExtensions", _
strFileKey & "," & strExt, _
"REG_SZ"
End If

End If

End If

Alternatively, could specify the ODBC text driver in the connection string for your ADO connection:

'
strConn = ""
strConn = strConn & "Driver={Microsoft Text Driver (*.txt; *.csv)};"
strConn = strConn & "Extensions=asc,csv,tab,txt,log,dat;"
strConn = strConn & "Dbq=" & strFolder & ";"
strConn = strConn & "Extended Properties=" & Chr(34) & "text;HDR=NO;IMEX=2;MAXSCANROWS=0;" & Chr(34) & ";"
'

Also: ninety seconds?

Were you reading this across the network? It’s always faster to use the file system to copy the file across to a local folder and read in the file from there, even when using ADODB.

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Nigel Heffernan

Nigel Heffernan — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:16:15 +0000

Odd. I thought everyone was using ADO to read text files with SQL.

Meanwhile, a quick tip: the ADODB.Recordset has a save method, which writes to an XML file or to a tab-delimited text file. This is not, of itself, terribly interesting: but the flipside of that is that the ADODB.Recordset object has a native ‘Open’ method that loads from a file:

Dim rst As ADODB.Recordset
Set rst = New ADODB.Recordset
rst.Open “C:\Temp\SysLog.txt”

rst.Filter = “[msgType]=’ERROR’”

If the file’s tab-delimited, that’s it. All of it. Not quite what you want for fixed-width files, but kinda useful.

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by snb

snb — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:53:52 +0000

But if you insist on using ADODB and a schema.ini file:

Sub M_snb_007()
c00 = "G:\OF\"
c01 = c00 & "0_fixedwidth_example_001.txt"
c02 = "0_fixedwidth_example_002.txt"
c03 = c00 & "schema.ini"

With CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject")
sn = Filter(Filter(Split(Replace(.opentextfile(c01).readall, ",", ""), vbCrLf), Space(60), False), "/")
.createtextfile(c00 & c02).write sn(0) & vbCrLf & Join(sn, vbCrLf)

y = InStr(sn(0), " ")
For j = 1 To Len(sn(0))
For jj = 1 To UBound(sn)
If Mid(sn(jj), y, 1) <> " " Then Exit For
Next
If jj = UBound(sn) + 1 Then c04 = c04 & Mid(sn(0), Len(c04) + 1, y - Len(c04) - 1) & "|"
y = y + InStr(Mid(sn(0), y + 1), " ")
If y = Len(sn(0)) Then Exit For
Next
c04 = c04 & Right(sn(0), y - Len(c03))

For j = UBound(Split(c04, "|")) To 2 Step -1
c04 = Replace(c04, String(j, "|"), "|" & Space(j - 1))
Next
sp = Split(c04, "|")

For j = 0 To UBound(sp)
sp(j) = "Col" & j + 1 & "=veld" & j + 1 & " Text Width " & Len(sp(j)) + 1
Next
.createtextfile(c03).write "[" & c02 & "]" & vbCrLf & "Format=Fixedlength" & String(2, vbCrLf) & Join(sp, vbCrLf)
End With

With New ADODB.Recordset
.Open "SELECT * FROM " & c02, "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & c00 & ";Extended Properties=""text;HDR=yes;FMT=FixedLength""", 3, 3, 1
Cells(1).CopyFromRecordset .DataSource
End With
End Sub

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by snb

snb — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:10:24 +0000

No harm done, just a slight amendment:

Sub M_snb()
sn = Filter(Filter(Split(Replace(CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject").opentextfile("G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.txt").readall, ",", ""), vbCrLf), Space(60), False), "/")

y = InStr(sn(0), " ")
For j = 1 To Len(sn(0))
For jj = 1 To UBound(sn)
If Mid(sn(jj), y, 1) <> " " Then Exit For
Next
If jj = UBound(sn) + 1 Then c00 = c00 & Mid(sn(0), Len(c00) + 1, y - Len(c00) - 1) & "|"
y = y + InStr(Mid(sn(0), y + 1), " ")
If y = Len(sn(0)) Then Exit For
Next
c00 = c00 & Right(sn(0), y - Len(c00))

For j = 10 To 2 Step -1
c00 = Replace(c00, String(j, "|"), "|" & Space(j - 1))
Next
sp = Split(c00, "|")

For j = 0 To UBound(sn)
c01 = ""
For jj = 0 To UBound(sp)
c01 = c01 & Mid(sn(j), Len(c01) + 1, Len(sp(jj))) & ","
Next
sn(j) = Left(c01, Len(sn(j)))
Next
CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject").createtextfile("G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.csv").write Join(sn, vbCrLf)

Workbooks.Open "G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.csv"
End Sub

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:02:53 +0000

That didn't work on my sample data

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by snb

snb — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:36 +0000

Wouldn’t this be sufficient ?

Sub M_snb()
sn = Filter(Filter(Split(CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject").opentextfile("G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.txt").readall, vbCrLf), Space(60), False), "/")

y = InStr(sn(0), " ")
For j = 1 To Len(sn(0))
For jj = 1 To UBound(sn)
If Mid(sn(jj), y, 1) <> " " Then Exit For
Next
If jj = UBound(sn) + 1 Then c00 = c00 & Mid(sn(0), Len(c00) + 1, y - Len(c00) - 1) & "|"
y = y + InStr(Mid(sn(0), y + 1), " ")
If y = Len(sn(0)) Then Exit For
Next
c00 = c00 & Right(sn(0), y - Len(c00))

For j = 10 To 2 Step -1
c00 = Replace(c00, String(j, "|"), "|" & Space(j - 1))
Next
sp = Split(c00, "|")

For j = 0 To UBound(sn)
c01 = ""
For jj = 0 To UBound(sp)
c01 = c01 & Mid(sn(j), Len(c01) + 1, Len(sp(jj))) & ","
Next
sn(j) = Left(c01, Len(sn(j)))
Next
CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject").createtextfile("G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.csv").write Join(sn, vbCrLf)

Workbooks.Open "G:\OF\0_fixedwidth_example_001.csv"
End Sub

Comment on Consulting by Tim

Tim — Sat, 11 May 2013 01:46:57 +0000

This is really, really helpful. Thanks a lot for putting it together.

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:38:05 +0000

Definitely I would use Monarch. It’s pricey though. I sure would like to see their algorithm.

Comment on Importing Fixed Width Text Files with ActiveX Data Objects by Zach

Zach — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:55:35 +0000

Very impressive. Also very complicated. I know that Excel is your hammer of choice (mine too!), but I have to wonder if it doesn’t make more sense to just use a dedicated text import program and be done with it. Monarch would handle this quite easily and more robustly. Heck, even if you insist on using Excel, you can always use the object model to call it into being in the background.

I do love my ADO, though. I will definitely keep this in mind if I ever have to deliver a packaged solution and cannot rely on external functionality.