Data Sources With File Layout Information
Modern databases can provide information about their own file layout. The file layout contains information about:
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The length of each record |
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The kind of data in each field |
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The physical size of the field and its position within the record |
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Other field characteristics such as the number of decimals in a numeric field or the date format in a field containing date information |
Analyzer automatically recognizes the file layouts of many proprietary database formats, such as dBASE. When Analyzer is connected to the Arbutus zSeries Server it can also recognize IBM’s DB2 and IMS proprietary file layouts.
Analyzer can also access the file layout information of any ODBC-compliant database. ODBC or Open Database Connectivity, is a Microsoft interface that allows Windows applications to connect to and read third-party database applications. Analyzer automatically reads and imports data from ODBC-compliant data sources, such as MS Access, MS Excel, and Oracle.
Finally, Analyzer can directly read comma or tab delimited files, MS Excel spreadsheets, and XML data files. For MS Excel and XML data, Analyzer automatically converts the source data into a new tab delimited file for all subsequent Analyzer analysis. For more information see Defining Files and Fields.