Import

[Brian]

I'm trying to import a csv file, however, I cannot use
comma delimited because there are commas in the product
descriptions (Not sure if this matters). Anyways, when I
finish places the breaks where they should be and finish
to import I get an error message "System Resource
Exceeded." Is this because the file is too big or is it
because of my machine, possibly not enough memory?

I have never seen this before and can't come up with much
information.
Thanks in advance,
Brian

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Brian,

A standard CSV file uses commas to separate the fields, but also
"delimits" (or "qualifies") any field that contains a comma in quotes.
Usually, in fact, every text field is enclosed in quotes.

If your file fits that description, Access should import it OK if you
make the relevant selections in the text import wizard.

The size of the file isn't usually a problem unless it is many megabytes
or your mdb file is near its size limit of 2GB (in recent versions of
Access). Memory is unlikely to be a problem unless your machine is very
old or has a limit on the size of its swap file.

In my experience, most problems with importing CSV files are problems
with the structure of the file, including:

- missing or superfluous quote marks or commas, which can cause some
records appear to have the wrong number of fields.

- quote marks in the data. These need to be doubled, e.g. this text
He shouted, "Help!"
in a Microsoft-style CSV file looks like this, with delimiting quotes at
either end and doubled quotes in the data:
"He shouted, ""Help!"""

- one or more records in the text file are too long for the Jet text
file driver to handle. I can't remember what the limit is, maybe a few
tens of thousands of characters.

- one or more records break the limit on the size of a record in an
Access table. This is approximately 2000 characters (in practice, in
Western character sets, rather more), and applies to all the number and
text fields (but not memo or OLE fields). If lines in your text file are
longer than this, you'll need to ensure that some of the fields are
imported as memo fields rather than text fields.