Sql server import flat file space delimited

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Privacy policy. For flat files, these two pages of the wizard present different sets of options, so this topic describes the flat file source and the flat file destination separately. For more info, see the following articles:. There are four pages of options for flat file data sources. That's a lot of pages! But you don't have to spend a lot of time on each page.

Here are the tasks to consider. On the General page, browse to select the file, then verify the settings in the Format section. Locale Specify the locale to provide language-specific information for sorting and for date and time formats. Unicode Specify whether the file uses Unicode.

If you use Unicode, you can't specify a code page. Format Select whether the file uses delimited, fixed width, or ragged right formatting.

Text qualifier Specify the text qualifier, if any, used by the file. For example, you can specify that text fields are enclosed in quotation marks. This property only applies to Delimited files. After you select a text qualifier, you can't re-select the None option. Type None to de-select the text qualifier. Header row delimiter Select from the list of delimiters for header rows, or enter the delimiter text. Header rows to skip Specify the number of rows to skip at the top of the file, if any.

Column names in the first data row Specify whether the first row after any skipped rows contains column names. On the Columns page, verify the list of columns and the delimiters that the wizard has identified. The following screen shot shows the page when you've selected Delimited as the flat file format.

Row delimiter Select from the list of available row delimiters, or enter the delimiter text. When I try to set the delimiter to Other and type in a space in the box I get the following error message:. Error Description: Invalid delimiter data: text qualifier mest be followed by a column delimiter except the last column. I get the same error message. I'm guessing that the DTS wizard does not generate the proper code for this type of file I'm trying to import. If I choose another delimiter I do not get the error.

But none of those options will work for me as I cannot modify the file structure. It must be imported in our database table as formatted. Any ideas? Is this DTS Import wizard the way to import this type of file or should I be considering using another solution? This wizard streamlines the import process as simple as selecting an input file and unique table name, and the PROSE framework handles the rest. PROSE analyzes data patterns in your input file to infer column names, types, delimiters, and more.

This framework learns the structure of the file and does all of the hard work so users don't have to. To further understand the user experience improvement of the Import Flat File Wizard, check out this video:. Make sure you are using the latest version. You can find the latest version here. For the purposes of this tutorial, feel free to use your own flat file.

Otherwise, this tutorial is using the following CSV from Excel, which you are free to copy. If you use this CSV, title it example. The first page of the wizard is the welcome page.

If you do not want to see this page again, feel free to click Do not show this starting page again. Abe Miessler Andrew Venture Andrew Venture 3 3 gold badges 7 7 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. The big problems will start when the '"' character is embedded in the text field and not part of the field qualifier. That can't easily be handled on import.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. You need to set the "Text qualifier" to ". Improve this answer. Will A Will A An answer like this has just saved me hours and hours of work. Where does this wizard reside? Abe Miessler Abe Miessler I didn't know you could paste multiple rows like that. That is pretty fantastically useful, thanks!