Reads a line from an input file that might have been created by
EXPORT.
Syntax
IMPORT [ STREAM stream | STREAM-HANDLE handle ]
{ [ DELIMITER character ] { field | ^ } ...
| [ DELIMITER character ] record [ EXCEPT field ... ]
| UNFORMATTED field
}
[ NO-LOBS ]
[ NO-ERROR ]
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IMPORT [ STREAM stream | STREAM-HANDLE handle ] { memptr | longchar }
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- STREAM stream
- Specifies the name of a stream. If you do not name a stream,
the AVM uses the unnamed stream.
- STREAM-HANDLE handle
- Specifies the handle to a stream. If handle it
is not a valid handle to a stream, the AVM generates a run-time
error. Note that stream handles are not valid for the unnamed streams.
See the chapter on alternate I/O sources in OpenEdge Development:
Programming Interfaces for more information on streams and
stream handles.
- DELIMITER character
- The character used as a delimiter between field values in the
file. The character parameter must be a quoted single character.
The default is a space character.
If you specify more than one
character as a delimiter, ABL uses the first character as the delimiter.
-
field
- The name of a field or variable to which you are importing data. The
field or variable must have either the CHARACTER or RAW data type. If the data type is
RAW, the IMPORT statement reads enough characters to fill the current
length of the variable. If not enough characters are available to fill the current
length, the length is reset to the number of characters read.
- ^
- Use a caret (^) to skip a data value in each input line when
input is being read from a file.
-
record
- The name of a record buffer. All of the fields in the record are
processed exactly as if you had named each of them individually. The record you name
must contain at least one field. To use IMPORT with a
record in a table defined for multiple databases, qualify the record's table name with
the database name. See the record definition in the
Record phrase reference entry for
more information.
- EXCEPT field
- Tells the AVM to import all the fields except those listed in the
EXCEPT phrase.
- UNFORMATTED field
- Treats each line of the input file as a single string value.
In this case, the field parameter must be a single
CHARACTER or RAW field or variable. You can use this option to read
text files one line at a time.
Use this option on a RAW variable
to import binary data that was not exported to the file as RAW data.
- NO-LOBS
- Directs the AVM to ignore large object data when importing records that
contain BLOB or CLOB fields.
- NO-ERROR
- The NO-ERROR option is used to
prevent the statement from raising ERROR and
displaying error messages.
-
memptr
- A variable of data type MEMPTR to which you are importing data.
-
longchar
- A variable of data type LONGCHAR to which you are importing
data.
Examples
This procedure takes the data in file customer.d and enters it into the OpenEdge database table Customer. The
procedure uses the DISABLE TRIGGERS statement to stop the AVM from
executing any triggers for the CREATE, WRITE, and
ASSIGN events when loading the data.
Note: The imported files, customer.d and custdump2, in the next
two examples are created by running the example programs under
EXPORT.
r-imprt.p
INPUT FROM customer.d.
DISABLE TRIGGERS FOR LOAD OF Customer.
REPEAT:
CREATE Customer.
IMPORT Customer.
END.
INPUT CLOSE.
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If the file uses a delimiter other than a space to separate fields, use
the DELIMITER option of the IMPORT statement.
r-cstin.p
DEFINE VARIABLE cnum NO-UNDO LIKE Customer.CustNum.
DEFINE VARIABLE cname NO-UNDO LIKE Customer.Name.
DEFINE VARIABLE cmax NO-UNDO LIKE Customer.CreditLimit.
INPUT FROM custdump2.
FOR EACH Customer:
IMPORT DELIMITER ";" cnum cname cmax.
DISPLAY cnum cname cmax.
END.
INPUT CLOSE.
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You can use the UNFORMATTED option to read the contents
of a standard text file. For example, the following procedure reads and displays the
contents of the hello file:
r-hello.p
DEFINE VARIABLE text-string AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO FORMAT "x(76)".
INPUT FROM VALUE(SEARCH("hello")).
DO WHILE TRUE ON ENDKEY UNDO, LEAVE:
IMPORT UNFORMATTED text-string.
DISPLAY text-string WITH DOWN FRAME x.
DOWN WITH FRAME x NO-LABELS.
END.
INPUT CLOSE.
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In the MEMPTR version of the IMPORT statement, the MEMPTR
must be pre-allocated to the size needed for reading. To get the length to read for an
imported file, use the FILE_INFO system handle and the
SET-SIZE statement as follows:
r-impmem.p
DEFINE VARIABLE bb AS MEMPTR NO-UNDO.
ASSIGN
FILE-INFO:FILE-NAME = "big.in"
SET-SIZE(bb) = FILE-INFO:FILE-SIZE.
INPUT FROM "big.in" BINARY NO-CONVERT.
IMPORT bb.
INPUT CLOSE.
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