Wildcard and hidden files "~$"

[joewkelly]

Hi!

I just encountered a weird error.  I have an Excel document that I called something like 

20170328_Lookup.xlsx.

In Alteryx, on the input, I use a wildcard to say give me as input any file named "*_Lookup.xlsx".  Just now, Alteryx came across with an error that it could not access "~$20170328_Lookup.xlsx".  I assume that this is a weird hidden file that Excel created but forgot to get rid of.  

I was finally able to rename my original file to the name of this weird "~$" file, then got a warning about overwriting that file, and then changed the name back to remove the "~$".

My question is -- will this ever cause a problem with my data loads?  This may be more of an Excel question -- but will Excel create a "~$" copy of the my file causing records to show up in duplicate?  If so, we may have to start wild-carding on the suffixes.  Ex, "Lookup_*.xlsx"

Best wishes,

Joe Kelly

[AXP]

When a file is opened using a Microsoft office product , Word, Excel etc. Office will automatically create a file known as ~$orignalfilename.extension. myfile.doc. For example in the case you provided for the 20170328_Lookup.xlsxfile, a file was created ~$20170328_Lookup.xlsx . This is a temporary file and is used to help recover data that might have been lost if the program stopped working or the program was suddenly turned off while you were working on a file.

These backup files are commonly created in the same directory that the original file is in and are usually hidden files. Also, these files should be automatically deleted after the file or program being used to edit the file is correctly closed. If this files are there they can be manually deleted as they are only a backup copy of the original file. If you do not have the file currently open they suggest your office program terminated abnormally.

I hope this helps.

Steven L Johnson
Analytics X Planning
Steven L Johnson
Analytics X Planning

[Zero talent]