importing extended descriptions from excel

[Mike Schwartz]

> 
> On 8/9/2017 10:28 PM, Mike Schwartz wrote:
> >> Can someone please help me out or at least point me in the right
> > direction?
> >> I have an excel files from my vendors which I usually use for
> >> importing in price increases and other small modifications but now
> >> I'd like to import extended descriptions into Filepro too. When I
> >> tried using a memo field
> > for
> >> that data I got a critical error which forced Filepro to close.
> > [Snip]
> >> Thank You, Mike
> >        You didn't mention which version of filePro you or on, nor your
> > operating system, but check the size of your PFIMPBUF environmental
> > variable.  By default I think PFIMPBUF is set fairly small, like 1024
> > characters.  This means filePro will truncate any "import" records to
> > a maximum length of 1024 characters.  Increase PFIMPBUF large enough
> > to handle the longest incoming record you expect in your .DIF files.
> >
> > Mike Schwartz
> >> I'm running server 2008 R2 and Filepro 5.09dn9
> 
> I looked in the Filepro dir using F6 and also in the startup batch file and I
> didn't see PFIMPBUF set anywhere. In that case can I just set it to whatever I
> want?
> 
> 
> Mike
> 
        I don't recall what the maximum length is for PFIMPBUF, nor if it applies to the Windows version of filePro.  You would have to look that info up in your filePro manuals, or I believe Stuart Werner's filepro Bible could probably help.  (I am not in my office yet and don't have a copy of either available to me right now...)

       If this is the problem, as I recall, what you would see is the first several fields getting imported OK, but none of the fields past 1024 characters in the record would get imported.

       I've written hundreds (perhaps thousands) of imports in filePro, mostly for a mail order customer I had up to a few years ago, and on their Unix server I think I had PFIMPBUF set to something like 32000.  As I recall, that might have been the max. 

       I wrote a few imports for an insurance company using the DOS version of filePro many years ago.  It seems like there was something I had to set to get the DOS version working, but I don't recall what it was.  I've written a few imports using the Windows version of filePro, but I don't recall if I set PFIMPBUF or did something else, or if the files I was importing were small enough that I didn't have to worry about it.  Most of the importing I've done involves mailing lists that have records that are shorter than 1024 characters.

Hope that helps!

Mike Schwartz