Combine/sort delimited data

The Combine/sort comma/tab delimited data dialog box has 3 main sections:

• Input files
• Sort options
• Output file and duplicate options

Input files

• Select input files lets you select the input files to use.
• A dialog box is displayed to allow selection of the files. When processing, files are read from the Input files dialog box in top to bottom order. The Input files dialog box displays all files that have been selected.
• Clear files will clear the Input files dialog box.
• Input file has header reads header text from the first input file. When selected, the header will be copied from the first input file to the output file.
• Remove header from output will remove the header line from the output file.

Sort options

There are 3 sort fields available and contain the following options:

• No sort - no sorting will be applied to the output file. Input files will be written to the output file in top to bottom order.
• Ascending - the sort will be in ascending order across all input files.
• Descending - the sort will be in descending order across all input files.

When Ascending or Descending has been selected you must define where the field is located:

• Field # is the relative field number. The first field in the file is field number 1. This field is auto filled when using header text for field selection.
• Header is header text loaded from the first file in the Input files dialog box. Select the field by using the dropdown list and highlighting the field.
• If sorting Ascending or Descending, select the data type. Default data type is ASCII. You may also choose to Ignore Case. Data types of IP Address, Numeric, Date m/d/yyyy, Date d/m/yyyy, Date yyyy/m/d formats are available. This enables the associated sort field(s) to be entered.

When multiple sort fields are selected, the sort fields are processed in order. For example, if sort field 1 is the State and sort field 2 is the City. The output file would be in State order with the Cities within each State also in order.

Output file and duplicate options

Save as opens a dialog box that allows you to specify the file name to be produced. You can also specify the file name by entering the full path name in the Output file field.

• Duplicate field selects the sort field to use for duplicate filtering. These options are only available when you have specified one or more sort fields
• Once the Duplicate field has been selected, you can specify which filter to apply. You can filter your sorted output with one of the following options:
• The filters are applied to the sorted order of the output file NOT the input file order.
• Allow duplicates - no filtering will be applied. All records will be written to the output file.
• Output first duplicate - the first occurrence of the duplicate field is written to the output file.
• Exclude all duplicates - creates a file where all duplicate values from the field selected are removed from the output.
• Output only duplicates - creates an output file where only duplicate values from the field selected are written to the output file.

Run

Selecting the Run button will check for any entry errors and process the input files creating a new output file. When processing is finished your entries will remain intact. This allows for changes and the process easily repeated.

Close

Selecting the Close button will clear all fields and return to the WCSortMerge dialog box.