Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!hacgate!ashtate!dbase!cy
From: cy@dbase.UUCP (Cy Shuster)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Dbase IV Question
Summary: Choose the character to be the delimiter
Keywords: dBASE IV APPEND
Message-ID: <340@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 89 18:43:00 GMT
References: <2849@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: cy@dbase.UUCP (Cy Shuster)
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 22

In article <2849@dogie.macc.wisc.edu> theisen@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Barbara Theisen) writes:
>THis particular user is trying to import some data from an ascii file (comma
>delimited, I believe).  Apparently there is a menu drive way to do this
>in Dbase IV.  She selects APPEND, and specifies the format (comma delimited,
>or whatever), a menu comes up with a list of files, from which she choses
>the correct file, and then (this is the great mystery) she gets a rectangular
>box that has a pair of numbers in it... [text omitted]

The menu system is asking you to choose which character in the input file
is used to delimit fields.  The rectangular box is a list of all ASCII
characters, represented three ways: the first column in the decimal value,
the second is the hex value, and the third is the printable form of the
character.  So if the input file is comma delimited, position to the line
containing "44 2C ," or, for tab delimited, the line "9 9 @" (disclaimer:
it's not really an @, but it plays one over Un*x). The equivalent dot
prompt command is "APPEND FROM C:\FILENAME.TXT TYPE DELIMITED WITH ,"
which will be displayed as the append proceeds.

I have entered this as two bugs, one against the documentation, and one
on the help system text.

--Cy--        cy@dbase.a-t.COM