4gb txt file without delimiter to open in alteryx

[deepaksadija85]

Hi,

Can any one help me as i have 4gb one txt file with no delimiter i am trying to put that in alteryx but as there is no delimiter alteryx is giving me error.

Any solution for this. Help is much appreciated.

[MarqueeCrew]

Please use the Null delimiter, \0

Also, be sure that record length is long enough.

Thanks,
Mark

[deepaksadija85]

Thank you for your reply. I have used it I am getting all the data in one column after this not able to split it in different columns as there is no delimiter.

Please suggest.

[StephenR]

Can you share a few lines of the file?  There are a number of things that can be used as a delimiter if it's a multi-line file you could use newline "\n", or even space " ".

[deepaksadija85]

I am not able to open the file. I have scheme of file like header name , number of characters of each columns etc in separate documents. Is there a way that I can use that and prepare data in alteryx.

[DanS]

Have you tried using Space as a delimiter? 

Without having any sample of the data, it's a shot in the dark, but this could help if there aren't multiple spaces in one field.

Thanks,

Dan

[tom_montpool · Accepted solution]

If you have a 'schema' file that tells you, for example, that "ZIP Code" is the first field and it goes from position 1 to position 5, it sounds to me like you have a fixed width file.

To import this type of file, choose "Flat ASCII file" instead of "Comma-Delimited" as your File Format in the Input Data tool.

This will bring up a "ruler" that will allow you to manually set the field definitions using the values in your schema file. I've included a picture.

If you have a large number of fields to specify, you can create a ".flat" file that Alteryx can use to read in the data. There's a help topic on this here: FlatFile.

The easier way to figure out how the .flat file is created is to take a small dataset that you know well and use the Output Data tool to export to the Flat ASCII file format. This automatically makes both a data and a schema file.

[deepaksadija85]

Thank you Tom for sharing your thoughts. It worked for me.

[Al_rcd]

Thanks, your answer help me to resolve my problem

[sullivanj2]

@tom_montpool

Once you've set up this flat file as your schema, is there a way to use it without having to select it again as your delimiter file whenever you update the input file?

Thanks