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Reading csv files with multiple tables

  • 4 October 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 356 views

Hello! We used to read csv files using a tool called “FFRead” provided by AIMMS. The tool allow us to merge multiple tables of csv data in the same file — below is the content of such a file:

I,Table1,City,Population

D,Table1,Paris,45

D,Table1,Lyon,47

I,Table2,Country,Population

D,Table2,UK,76

D,Table2,France,89

 

As “FFRead” is not actively maintained, we are switching to “DataLink” and “CsvProvider”. Does these new tools provide the possibility to read multi-table csv data? Or we must create a new csv file per table?

Thank you;

Amritbir Gill

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Best answer by MarcelRoelofs 4 October 2020, 20:48

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Hi Amritbir,

I think the statement “not actively maintained” is, in fact, a little bit more nuanced. FFRead has never been released and maintained as a generally available feature, and doesn’t have any public documentation.

Rather, it was developed by us for one specific customer to support their specific flatfile-based data exchange mechanism when the customer transitioned from AIMMS 2 to AIMMS 3. FFRead supports the multi-table CSV feature as found in the flatfiles in use by this customer. For this specific customer, we still maintain FFRead, and service the occasional support request.

However, although not a generally available feature, some AIMMS support personnel also distributed FFRead to other customers, because, at the time, we didn’t have native CSV support in any other library. For these customers, I consider FFRead an unsupported library, for which we will offer no support. 

For regular CSV files (so, not the multi-table CSV format), we currently have two supporting libraries, DataLink in combination with the CSV provider, and the DataExchange library. Of those two, we’re building a broader data exchange vision around the latter, see also https://community.aimms.com/share-your-product-ideas-37/standardizing-data-exchange-with-aimms-722.  

Thank you Marcel;

I understand that the multi-table csv is not supported by DataLink and CSVProvider, it may be supported in future via DataExchange.

I’ll contact AIMMS support to know if the specific customer having FFRead support is us.

Thank you again.

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