Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 07:04:53 GMT

Hi All,

Thanks for your reply.

I got the root cause of this behaviour. This is happening due to "escapeCsv" function used to get the column value and this function has its own properties that if text includes comma/""/new line then text will be enclosed in Quotes.

https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/apidocs/org/apache/commons/lang3/StringEscapeUtils.html#escapeCsv-java.lang.String-

I will be stripping comma/""/new line before saving the data into database and then when this Plugin will be used for creating file, it will not have any issue (Tested and working fine).

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 06:09:46 GMT

Yes I tried Cast function but still getting text enclosed in Double Quotes

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

amyw — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 13:17:00 GMT

In your Select query, have you tried setting the column as: cast(COLUMN_NAME as char)?

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 09:44:17 GMT

No, I can't see 10, 13 or 9 in the list

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

Vinay Kumar Rai — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 09:35:20 GMT

Yes it return unicode characters, can you please verify the number 13,10 or 9, is present or not on the text

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 09:08:48 GMT

Hi Vinay,

CODE function in Appian will convert each character of the text provided into its Unicode, so this will not help as if I provide my complete statement it will return list of number integers (As per function definition).

code(
"Hello Everyone a New project has been started by user with following comments XYZ"
) - This will return list of 81 number integer (where 81 is number of characters in text)

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

Vinay Kumar Rai — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:28:33 GMT

as I already mention use CODE function in Appian Expression Editor,
just copy the text from the database and see weather you get any special characters
code(
"Hello Everyone a New project has been started by user with following comments XYZ"
),

In the database you can not see the Unicode Characters directly

on the database end you can also try below code to find the newline characters

select *
from YourTable
where Col1 like '%' + char(10) + '%'

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:21:04 GMT

How to validate for the Unicode characters from database? We have simple statement like "Hello Everyone a New project has been started by user with following comments XYZ" as on of the column value which is getting enclosed in "", but if I reduce the same to "Hello Everyone" no "" are appearing.

if I run the same Select query directly in DB I can see the data correctly, but same data in text file is corrupted.

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

Vinay Kumar Rai — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 07:23:06 GMT

I think you get some unicode characters from the database,
for debugg please copy the text from the database table and in the appian side used CODE to check if any unicode charcters are present in the text like 10,13,9

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 07:05:48 GMT

Hi,

I am just using simple Select query to get the specific columns and corresponding values from database

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

Jamal Case — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 18:00:22 GMT

Can you share how you configured the "SQL" parameter in the "Export SQL to Flat File" smart service?

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:08:42 GMT

Thanks for the response,

The behaviour of the Plugin is quite weird.

For one of the column having long statements as value, the value is getting enclosed in "" but in the same column if you have just 2 words like Prakhar Garg then 1st word is coming in 1st line and automatically 2nd word comes in other line in txt file but without "".

I am getting values directly from table using sql script.

I am not sure what I am missing.

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

amyw — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 12:03:44 GMT

If you are getting the values directly from the database when using the Smart Service, you might not be able to use an Appian function. Have you tried using something like: SET Name = REPLACE(Name,' " ', ' ' ) in your SQL code to remove the quotes from that value?
Otherwise, as Jamal said, you could consider using the stripwith() or cleanwith() functions before you save the values into the database to being with, which would remove this downstream issue.

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

Jamal Case — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 11:34:42 GMT

You could use the stripwith() or cleanwith() functions to remove the double quotes from that value in a script task right before you execute the "Export SQL to Flat File" Smart Service. please refer to https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/17.3/fnc_text_cleanwith.html and https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/17.3/fnc_text_stripwith.html .

RE: Export SQL to Flat File (Text Format) - Column Value with Space is coming within Double Quotes

PGarg — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 06:24:18 GMT

Value is getting saved exactly same (with double quotes) which is causing issue in downstream system.