Re: Good field separation character?

Peter,

I generally use the pipe character '|', I find that in 'normal' data entry users very rarely insert that character by mistake. It's positioned in a rather awkward place on the keyboard, and requires a complete hand movement and a shift key to be held down to produce (at least on my keyboard).

HTH, David.

Peter Stryjewski wrote:

> I am looking for a good field separator character for rows that have
> string data.
>
> I am reading a series of values from a given row and putting them into a
> UNIX text file. I then manipulate the text file using 'awk' and end up
> producing Oracle "update" commands.
>
> The problem is whatever standard printable character I use as a field
> separator usually shows up a part of a string either intentionally or as
> a typo.
>
> I've tried the tilde, back quote, carat, etc. It seems like if it can
> be entered incorrectly it will be.
>
> I was wondering if anyone had any luck with non-printable characters or
> maybe some "international" characters as the separators in flat files?
>
> Pete Stryjewski
> pstryjew_at_worldnet.att.net
Received on Mon Jun 07 1999 - 23:27:54 CDT