Information Analyzer and Access

sigma · Post by **sigma** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:32 am

We have the tool installed on AIX version 5.3

It is a unix based tool

Can information Analyzer access MS Access databases.

If yes how.

Can information Analyzer access flat files to profile or is it pretty much tied to databases which can be accessed via drivers on the unix hosts

lstsaur · Post by **lstsaur** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:52 pm

Yes, you can access and profile the text files, but you can only do the Column Analysis. As to MS Access, you are better off to use MS tools, e.g. DTS (free), SSIS.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:41 pm

If you can find a third-party UNIX-based ODBC driver for MS Access then Information Analyzer can be used to profile MS Access tables.

sigma · Post by **sigma** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:50 pm

Thanks. For now I will try to setup the Information analyzer to profile from flat files

To make it read TXT and CSV files I defined the following driver in .odbc.ini and made an entry into uvodbc.config

Driver=/usr/IBM/InformationServer/Server/branded_odbc/lib/VMtxt22.so
Description=DataDirect TextFile(*.*) Driver
AllowUpdateAndDelete=0
ApplicationUsingThreads=1
CacheSize=4
CenturyBoundary=20
Database=/cdwdata/source/temp
DataFileExtension=txt
DecimalSymbol=.
Delimiter=,
FileOpenCache=0
FirstLineNames=0
IntlSort=0
ScanRows=25
TableType=Comma
UndefinedTable=GUESS

If I have 3 data files file1.txt file2.txt and file3.txt should I put them under
Database=/cdwdata/source/temp

when i import the metadata in IA it does not seem to recognize any files under the above path.

Can I please get some help in understanding how I put my files (my files are all in unix world) and how I import their meta data

arvind

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:18 pm

Are all the files you wish to process discoverable as /cdwdata/source/temp/*.txt ?

sigma · Post by **sigma** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:25 pm

Thanks to this forum and your help Ray

I saw some postings about QETXT.INI

I copied the following in there

[Defined Tables]
customer.txt=CUSTOMER
[CUSTOMER]
FILE=customer.txt
FLN=0
TT=FIXED
Charset=ANSI
DS=
FIELD1=CUSTOMER_ID,NUMERIC,3,0,3,0,
FIELD2=COUNTRY_CODE,NUMERIC,3,0, 3,3,
FIELD3=CUSTOMER_NAME,VARCHAR,0,0, 23,6 ,
FIELD4=VENDOR_NAME,VARCHAR,0,0, 20,29 ,

and created the customer.txt file

and I am able to import it

So the key to have the file defined over there and /cdwdata/source/temp will have the *.txt data files. Is that correct

Where is this all documented ..I found this from this site but not in the documentation as I could not find it.

Thanks a lot

sigma · Post by **sigma** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:26 pm

All our files we want to profile will be either .txt or .csv made available under the unix path /cdwdata/source/temp

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:35 pm

The on-line help in Information Analyzer is often an easier place to find information than the manuals. Though it should all be in the manuals - I have not yet perused the version 8.0 IA manual in any depth. Only 24 hours available in the day!

lstsaur · Post by **lstsaur** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:38 pm

No documentation. I learned my lessons from Ascential tech. support and then posted them to this forum.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:33 pm

... which begs the question - where do they get their information?