[thelist] importing a non-standard datadump

[Brian Cummiskey]

Luther, Ron wrote:

> Sorry.  I guess we should have spelled out 'Rule 1' more explicitly: 
> 
> "Always work from a backup of the raw client data."

oh, no no.  I still have the orig. data file.  I think i'm up to 
xxxxxx_19.csv.  lol

I'm not *that* dumb :p


> Here is another idea that might help some: Take a good hard look at 
> your raw data.  It may be possible to determine how many good lines 
> you 'should' have when you finally get things cleaned up. {Maybe 
> something as easy as a count of all 'pipes' divided by two. Maybe 
> something a bit trickier.} The value here is that it would give you 
> a 'sanity cross check' to improve your confidence that you haven't 
> misplaced any data records once you finally think you might be 
> done.

I think the number of rows i have is correct.  But one, or more of these 
rows is missing a column.  I've tryed to skim it a couple times to see 
if it would stand out, and its just impossible.


> BTW - This data really isn't that 'weird' ... I don't think it's that 
> uncommon to have to parse 'print image' mainframe reports into local 
> data tables ... it can get a whole lot uglier than what it looks like 
> you are playing with here.

Uglier than this- I hope I never have to see that.

Time to push for a webstandard for CSV :D

"field1","field2","field3";
"field1","field2","field3";

and so on.  Ahh, how life would be great.  And even IE would support it :D