Default parsed fields

joeempson · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 11 Location: UK

I am parsing a CSV file into a fixed length output. The input file contains a date field with is missing on some records and populated on others:

John Smith,a house,19/04/1980,xxx
john dow,a different house,,yyy

I want to default the date to 12/31/9999 if it is missing.

IFTHEN=WHEN does not seem appropriate because the date field is not at a fixed position.

Is it possible to do this in a single step?

prahalad · New User Joined: 14 Sep 2010 Posts: 18 Location: Pune

You can try with the following SORT job. You can adjust the field position are per your requirement.

joeempson · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 11 Location: UK

Thanks that worked.

They key thing I missed was the ability to use INREC to parse the record first.

joeempson · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 11 Location: UK

I found a better solution for the case when there are multiple fields to default.

IFTHEN is not good in this scenario because it can only handle one match per record and if there are multiple fields missing in the input you have to cover every possible combination with complicated IFTHEN statements.

After a quick ssearch through the manual I found the CHANGE statement which suits my purpose perfectly

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:34 am

joeempson · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 11 Location: UK

Thanks Frank, I didn't know about HIT=NEXT and yes it is an alternative solution to my problem.