I know ASP.NET fairly well (getting up to speed with 2.0).

Here's my problem: Sometimes someone comes up to me with a large flat
file from a mainframe (and it ain't XML) and says "loop through all the
rows, make all X's into Y's (or whatever) and do some other reporting
on this file".

oooookkkkkk.... Problem is, I'm on an IBM laptop at a client, without
access to Oracle or SQL Server. How do I work with a LARGE file with
100,000+ records? I can get the file on my laptop, but then what?

1. Let Excel 2007 beta look at it - oops - too many ROWS ! NO GOOD.
2. import it into Access - but i don't know VBscript to interrogate
each row (looping thru the file). Trying to import it into an Access
table chokes Access and I have to shut down.
3. import into mySQL - the import works much better here - but its
still time consuming and I don't have an easy way of interrogating the
data in a procedural (non-SQL) format. I wish there was a .NET way to
work with mySQL without creating a whole .NET application / website.
4. create an ASP.NET application, use C#.net in a code-behind to read
the file in line by line & work with the data - time consuming because
i have to create a compile this whole big .NET application.

I guess what I'm looking for is SAS, or ACL for .NET - I've seen
people do some cool things with Access - using Access to read an
external file (not pulling it into the Access db which would choke) and
using vbScript to do stuff on each row. But learning vbScript w/
Access seems to be going way backwards for me. I know .NET. But to
create a whole .NET application just to do this seems like overkill!
Anything else out there? It has to be great with all kinds of data
extracts, and I need to have it work on my laptop.

Thanks for any advice
Jason Shohet

Hi Jason,

You might be posting to the wrong group.

If Excel 2007 tells you that you have too many rows, then you are trying to
import a file with more than 1 million rows.

Using Access to do this would be trivial, and not require code. Just link to
the text file (File -- Get External Data -- Link Tables), then use queries
to make changes to the data. If you know SQL Server, then the query editor
in Access should not be too difficult to master. Queries will probably still
run slowly given that you have so many records.

Ed Ferrero
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://www.edferrero.com

"xz" wrote in message
ps.com...
I know ASP.NET fairly well (getting up to speed with 2.0).

Here's my problem: Sometimes someone comes up to me with a large flat
file from a mainframe (and it ain't XML) and says "loop through all the
rows, make all X's into Y's (or whatever) and do some other reporting
on this file".

oooookkkkkk.... Problem is, I'm on an IBM laptop at a client, without
access to Oracle or SQL Server. How do I work with a LARGE file with
100,000+ records? I can get the file on my laptop, but then what?

1. Let Excel 2007 beta look at it - oops - too many ROWS ! NO GOOD.
2. import it into Access - but i don't know VBscript to interrogate
each row (looping thru the file). Trying to import it into an Access
table chokes Access and I have to shut down.
3. import into mySQL - the import works much better here - but its
still time consuming and I don't have an easy way of interrogating the
data in a procedural (non-SQL) format. I wish there was a .NET way to
work with mySQL without creating a whole .NET application / website.
4. create an ASP.NET application, use C#.net in a code-behind to read
the file in line by line & work with the data - time consuming because
i have to create a compile this whole big .NET application.

I guess what I'm looking for is SAS, or ACL for .NET - I've seen
people do some cool things with Access - using Access to read an
external file (not pulling it into the Access db which would choke) and
using vbScript to do stuff on each row. But learning vbScript w/
Access seems to be going way backwards for me. I know .NET. But to
create a whole .NET application just to do this seems like overkill!
Anything else out there? It has to be great with all kinds of data
extracts, and I need to have it work on my laptop.

Thanks for any advice
Jason Shohet