DataLoad Community

[David]

It might be useful to be able to define comments within a .dld or .fld file.

These could be used:-

to add notes to remind ourselves why we did things in a particular way, e.g. using "Clear Block" to ensure that the cursor goes to the first field in a Block

to suppress a block of data, which is not required for one organisation, but is required for another. Adding and deleting the comments is easier than adding and deleting the data.

The comments could be identified in a number of ways. One way would be to start a comment with /* and finish it with */. Another way would be <comment> and </comment>.

As DataLoad reads the .dld or .fld file (left to right, top to bottom) it would stop passing data to the server when it encountered the start-of-comment string (e.g. /*), then continue until it found the end-of-comment string (e.g. */), then continue passing data to the server again.

For example, suppose that I want to load Segment Values for Bank Accounts, dependant on the Organisation:

700101 | Co. 1 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700102 | Co. 1 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700103 | Co. 1 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

700201 | Co. 2 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700202 | Co. 2 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700203 | Co. 2 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

700301 | Co. 3 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700302 | Co. 3 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700303 | Co. 3 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

When I build the .dld file, I can include all items, then comment out the ones that I don't want loaded for the current Organisation:

700101 | Co. 1 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700102 | Co. 1 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700103 | Co. 1 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

/* currently loading Organisation 1, the following values will be excluded

700201 | Co. 2 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700202 | Co. 2 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700203 | Co. 2 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

700301 | Co. 3 Bank Account 1 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700302 | Co. 3 Bank Account 2 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO
700303 | Co. 3 Bank Account 3 | \{TAB 6} | YES | YES | Asset | NO | NO

end of exclusions for Organisation 1 */

If you are an existing DataLoad user, can you please complete the poll, so that DataLoad Development can determine whether this would be a usefull facility or not?

TIA
_________________
When my time comes,
I want to die like my grandfather did:
quietly and in his sleep.
Not kicking and screaming like the passengers in his car.

David K. Dickson
DataLoad Forum Moderator

[-G-]

Comments would definitely be useful, but I would not want it to be a priority. I rarely use them or see them used in Excel. The ability to change the titles is already very helpful.