Page 2 - ascii to Access

You need to tell me what you are using the data for. If it is to stick into a database you can probably make use of the Perl DBI interface and stick it directly into the database. If you are going to use it for some other purposes, you may be able to do the work directly in Perl or do much of the preprocessing so that some other process can make short work of the rest. Are you going to be doing this 20 times a day or just once? It makes a difference on how much effort you want to put into it. I have often spent days getting a process automated to run once a week, sometimes you have to consider the economics of the situation.

What are your requirements?

My first intention was to parse this data into an ACCESS database, but after finding out what perl can do (baby steps) I wanted see what I could do about making most of this process in perl.

This project is a maybe twice a month. Although I have been given until Oct 1st to finish the project.

The requirements are to take the data (much like to the sample I showed you previously) and make it possible to easily manipulate the data without losing it's structure (i.e. the three digit type code together).

I was told to figure out whatever way that works. Last week I found perl and wanted to explore the possibilities. Now I feel that perl can do the job, it's just completing it by the deadline.

I would take the raw data into Perl, parse it, then (presuming Perl's DBI will handle it) dump it into a set of Access tables. That way it should be trivial to do further manipulations. If, however, you know what the 'further manipulations' are going to be, it may make better sense to do so whilst still in Perl.

I don't have Access 2000 so I can't test writing into its tables from Perl.

Good luck!

If you have any other questions, don't hessitate to let me know.