Column Import stage

The Column Import stage is a restructure stage. It can have a single input link, a single output link and a single rejects link. The complement to this stage is the Column Export stage, described in Column Export stage.

The Column Import stage imports data from a single column and outputs it to one or more columns. You would typically use it to divide data arriving in a single column into multiple columns. The data would be fixed-width or delimited in some way to tell the Column Import stage where to make the divisions. The input column must be a string or binary data, the output columns can be any data type.

You supply an import table definition to specify the target columns and their types. This also determines the order in which data from the import column is written to output columns. Information about the format of the incoming column (for example, how it is delimited) is given in the Format tab of the Output page. You can optionally save reject records, that is, records whose import was rejected, and write them to a rejects link.

In addition to importing a column you can also pass other columns straight through the stage. So, for example, you could pass a key column straight through.

The stage editor has three pages:

• Stage Page. This is always present and is used to specify general information about the stage.
• Input Page. This is where you specify the details about the single input set from which you are selecting records.
• Output Page. This is where you specify details about the processed data being output from the stage.