Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base
Definitive answers from Designer Desktop experts.Input Zipped Archive Files
Alteryx Designer supports reading in single and multiple input files in a zipped archive file (.zip). Multiple files of the same file type in a zipped archive can be read into the Designer in a standard Input Data Tool.
After adding an Input Toolto the canvas, navigate to the filein the Input Tool's configuration. After selecting the .zip file, Alteryx Designer provides options for extracting the data (Figure 1). First, select the file type to extract from the zipped file using the Drop-Down Menu. The Designer will automatically detect the file types contained in the zipped archive. Only one file type can be selected for extraction from the zipped archive. In the example shown in Figure 1, three Alteryx database (.yxdb) files will be extracted from a zipped archive. Once the file type has been selected, choose the files to be extracted by checking the box in front of each file name. Then, click "Open".
Figure 1: Using the Drop-Down menu, select the file type to extract. Then, select the files (and associated components, like sheets for Excel files) to read in.
When reading in multiple files from a zipped archive, the Input tool's configuration (Figure 2) differs from the configuration of inputting a single file. If the File Format (Option 2) denotes a Zip Archive (.zip) file type, then the Files in Archive (Option 3) will populate and list the file names within that archive, separating the file names with semi-colons. Specify the format for Alteryx to use to Parse the Selected File As (Option 6). Reading in large files may require that the Extraction of Files > 2GB (Option 7) be selected.
Figure 2: The Input Data configuration denotes the data files extracted from the zip archive and provides additional options for reading in and parsing the files.
When selecting multiple files as input data, it should be noted that only files of the same schema can be read in. Alteryx will use the first file in the zip archive to determine the schema to be used. Every file thereafter is compared to the first to determine that the number of fields and data types are equal. If theyare not, then the file is not read in and a warning will appear in the Results Window (Figure 3).
Figure 3: For files whose schema do not match the first input file, the data will not be read in and a warning will appear in the Results Window.
Check out the process in video, too!
