Flat Files as Data Sources or Targets

OWB supports using flat files as data sources. Flat files are typically in plain text comma-separated or tab-separated format, or proprietary binary formats, and may be stored on different types of operating systems. You first ensure that you have direct access either locally, or by creating a network connection, through TCP/IP or NFS for example. OWB provides the Create Flat File Wizard to create a file object, which will contain the imported flat-file definitions.

The Create Flat File Wizard provides intuitive prompts for importing metadata. To start the wizard, you right-click the file module and select Import. You can filter the filenames from which to import by applying wildcards. The wizard creates definitions for the files and inserts the file names under the Flat File module in the Project Navigator.

The locations that correspond to this module appear as folders on your computer's file system. The metadata is imported into a file module in OWB and becomes visible in the workspace.

You can then sample the metadata from these flat files. The Flat File Sample Wizard enables you to view a sample of the flat file and define record organization and file properties. You can sample and define common flat file formats such as string and ASCII. The Flat File Sample Wizard also enables the importation of new data types such as GRAPHIC, RAW, and SMALLINT.

After you have created the flat-file locations and have imported the flat-file metadata, you are ready to import data. You introduce data from a flat file into an OWB mapping either through an external table or a flat-file operator. Depending on how the data is to be transformed, use one of the following options:

• External Table Option

• Flat File Operators