[Wlug] Any SQL-types out there? (more lab automation stuff)

[Stephen Daukas]

I received an incredibly useful suggestion from a fellow WLUGger that I am
coming up to speed on.  I'll fill you in when I'm confident I "get" what he
is trying to "learn me".  Its probably "SQL 101" for database types, but
I'll provide a summary of what I end up with just the same.  Definitely a
SQL solution!

Steve


On 7/25/07, Stephen Daukas <scd at daukas.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Chuck!
>
> If I knew the order of the columns a priori, that would work, but sadly I
> don't.  The number of columns, as well as the order, are random due to the
> fact that different sondes collect different data.  In fact, my plan was to
> first determine the order of the columns in the source file, then I thought
> about using ALTER TABLE (in combination with SELECT column-of-interest) to
> put each column, one-by-one, into the new table in the proper order - last
> to first.  If I select columns as you suggest, I still have to insert
> "empty" columns to maintain the proper column order, and I haven't found a
> way to insert a column into the middle of a table.  (ALTER TABLE always
> creates a new column at the front of the table.)
>
> I was also thinking of biting the bullet and learning about MS JET (ODBC
> provider) attributes/field names as a way of discovering what fields
> (columns) are available, but I'm trying to keep this as close to "token
> handling" as possible so I can easily cleave MS-specific file stuff from the
> meat of the program.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong on this - my SQL experience is on the order of 15
> years old and I only just taught myself VB scrpt a few weeks ago...
>
> Steve
>
>  On 7/25/07, Chuck Anderson <cra at wpi.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 09:29:43AM -0400, Stephen Daukas wrote:
> > > There are literally hundreds of files of data in CSV format, and I
> > intend to
> > > process each by itself, preserving the original, and creating a new
> > > "adjusted" file for the next step.  (The next step would be to
> > concatenate
> > > all files together for numeric processing.)  Original files must be
> > > preserved (chain of custody requirements), so I am opening the file,
> > > selecting records using SQL, and am now ready to do the
> > rearranging/writing
> > > to a new file...
> >
> > So you are selecting records out of a CSV file using SQL?  How about
> > this:
> >
> > select columnB,columnG,columnA,columnC,columnF from foo;
> >
> > That will take the columns and return them in the given order.
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> >
>
>
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