Handling formats when reading text files

Lots of applications provide data in a flat, fixed-width format. Even when Alteryx doesn’t have a .txt format reader, it allows us to extract data from this type of file, by offering a parsing functionality (similar to what Excel has to determine columns and field types).

Every time we need to access this type of file, we need to know how and where is data organized, and most of the time, these files come with a “data dictionary” telling us the internal structure of the files.

In this recipe, we’ll guide you to build an automated fixed-length file parser, leveraging some of Alteryx Designer’s functionalities.

Getting ready

We got you covered to try this recipe with a sample set here:

https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Alteryx-Designer-Cookbook/tree/main/ch1/Recipe6

This sample data has a dictionary, indicating to us the name, type, size, and scale of each field within it. You can find the...