sybperl-l Archive

From: mpeppler at itf dot ch (Michael Peppler)
Subject: BCP module
Date: Feb 16 1996 12:20PM

Hi...

I'm considering writing a (sort of) generalized bcp module for sybperl,
and I was wondering if you folks might have any comments...

It would go something like this:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use Sybase::Bcp;

$bhd = new Sybase::Bcp user, password;

# General configuration
$bhd->config(DATE => 'MMDDYYY',	   # default conversion pattern for date/time
             NULL => '^$',	   # How are NULLs represented in the file
             INPUT => 'file-name',
             OUTPUT => 'table-name',
             ERRORS => "bcp.err',
             FIELDS => 10,	   # There are 10 columns in this file
             SEPARATOR => '|');    # And they are separated using '|'

$bhd->describe(2, {TYPE => DATE });    # Tell bcp that field 2 is a DATE field
                                # The default parsing defined above 
                                # would be applied.
$bhd->describe(3, {CALLBACK => \&munge_field_3});
				# Tell bcp to call &munge_field_3 with the
				# the content of the third field before
				# sending the row.
$bhd->run;
__END__

By allowing callbacks before submitting data any conversions can be
made. Allowing a date conversion pattern makes it possible to import
dates that may be specified in incomplete or non standard form.

The run() method does all the parsing, etc. and re-tries failed batches
so that only the actual rows that cause problems (such as duplicate
keys) are not loaded (and are stored in the ERRORS file.)

Comments?

Michael