Warning message: Newlines detected

sd

Hi,

I'm using Alteryx version 9.0.4.47108 and I'm doing a simple export from an Informix database to a text file.  The Text file output option I've selected is 'Comma delimeted text files  .csv'  however I've chose "|"  (pipe) as my delimeter.

When I run the extract Alteryx indicates the file transfer was successful, however it gives a Warning.  The message is:  "Newlines detected in data, output file might not be readable by other tools."

When I look at the Input and Output sections of the Output dialog, I see that the same number of records that were read were also written out to the text file.  So, it doesn't look like I added any newlines to my output text file.

One other bit of information on this... for my Input Data tool that reads the table from the Informix database, I am using the SQL editor option to convert select text fields that natively contain a "|" (pipe) in some of the field values.  To convert, I'm using a simple Replace function to replace pipes with an underscore character.

Does anyone know what the Newlines detected Warning message is telling me?  I've tried to research on Help and in this Forum, but I've had no luck.  Any insight is appreciated!

sd

jdunkerley79

I think it is telling you you have text fields with multiple line in the value. The resulting CSV file will hence have rows split over multiple lines which can confuse some import tools, plus I think Alteryx uses the UNIX style endings which other windows tools dont like.

For example if I save:

as a CSV with | delimeters the output is:

Value|Text
1|"Alpha\nBeta"
2|"Gamma\nDelta"

(Where \n is the line feed character.)

Hope that makes sense.