VI FTP Input Object

The Visual Integrator (VI) FTP input object reads data from an FTP server into the script.

VI FTP Input Object Icon

FTP input object accepts input from one or more text files. The contents of the remote files are read directly into the data flow. Both systems must have the FTP protocol enabled. The text files are described by column headers within the file or by an external dictionary file.

The FTP object has three panes where you set attributes.

Object Attributes

You set attributes for the FTP object in the object attributes pane.

Attribute	Description
Filename(s) or Starname(s) (required)	Defines one or more input files as follows: Click the browse button for a row in the Filename(s) or Starname(s). The Select File dialog box displays. Browse to the file or to the folder if using starname. Select the input file or type a wildcard character matching string in the File Name box. Click Select. That Filename(s) or Starname(s) row is now populated. Repeat to add additional rows in the Filename(s) or Startname(s) section. NOTE: Alternatively, you can type the path and file name or wildcard character matching string in each row of the Filename(s) or Starname(s) section. For starname, you can use the wildcard characters question mark (?) or asterisk (). ? (question mark)—Matches any single character (asterisk)—Matches a sequence of characters Wildcard character matching is case-insensitive and is limited to one directory only. To match in more than one directory, add additional rows to the section. TIP: If working with case sensitive file names, try using a Directory input object. You can filter on the filename metadata and feed it into a Filein object using the File_List_Input attribute. With the starname attribute, files are returned in the order that they are found in the directory; they are not necessarily sorted alphabetically. The order can vary across systems, and is often related to how files are deleted and added in the directory. Programs should not rely on the order of starnames.
File_Type	Specifies how the columns are named in the input files. Choices are: standard—File is a fixed- or variable-format text file described in a DI dictionary. This type requires either a Dict_File or Dict_Obj attribute. column_headers (default)—File is a variable-format text file with the first line in the file naming the columns. This type requires a Delimiter attribute. ignore_column_headers—First line in the file is ignored and instead uses a DI dictionary to describe the file. This type requires either a Dict_File or Dict_Obj attribute. DBF—File is a standard DBase-2 DBF file. Column names come from the DBF header. TIP: The file type ignore_column_headers allows you to use a dictionary with trim=false to keep leading spaces in the input data.
Delimiter (required for column_headers file type)	Specifies the delimiter that is used to separate columns for variable format files. If not specified, ASCII tab is used. Choices are: space tab \t comma , semicolon ; pipe \|
Dictfile (standard type only)	Specifies the file name for the dictionary that describes the columns. This attribute is used with legacy format dictionaries, which list both the column names and the data categories. Use the browse button to navigate to the dictionary file.
Server	Specifies the hostname or IP address for the FTP server. Any IPv6 addresses are automatically converted to IPv4 addresses. The Server and URL attributes are mutually exclusive—specify one or the other.
User	Specifies the logon username for the FTP server. Conflicts with the URL attribute if the URL includes the username.
Password	Specifies the logon password for the FTP server. If not specified, no password is required when logging into an FTP server. Conflicts with the URL attribute if the URL includes the password. The Password and Password_File attributes are mutually exclusive—use one or the other.
Password_File	Specifies a file containing the logon password for the FTP server. The password must be on the first line in the file. This allows you to store the password outside the VI script. The Password and Password_File attributes are mutually exclusive—use one or the other.
Directory	Specifies the remote directory on the FTP server for the input files. Conflicts with the URL attribute; do not use both the Directory and URL attributes. Click in the Directory field, and click the browse button that appears. The Remote Directory dialog box appears. Browse to the appropriate location and click OK.
URL	Specifies the FTP server and file name in URL format. The URL must begin with ftp and have the general format of: `ftp://<server>/<filename>` The file name can use wildcard characters as described in the Filename(s) or Starname(s) attribute. Optionally, you can define the User, Password, and Port attributes in the URL attribute by using the following format: `ftp://<user>:<password>@<server>:<port_number>/<filename>` The URL attribute can conflict with several other attributes, so use caution. Do not use the Filename(s) or Starname(s), Server, or Directory attributes as these are defined directly in the URL attribute. Do not use the User, Password, or Port attributes if they are defined in the URL attribute.
Port	Specifies the port for the FTP server. The default value is 21, which is the Internet standard port for FTP. Do not use the Port attribute if using the URL attribute.
Filename_Column	Specifies a name for a new column added to the output flow for example, where-from. The values in this column contain the path and file name indicating where each input row of data originated as shown in the example output here. This attribute is useful for troubleshooting when using multiple input files.
First	Specifies a number to limit how many records are read from each input file. This attribute is useful for script testing on a small number of records. If not used, all rows are read.
Newline	Specifies a newline character as a string containing exactly one character from the input file. The newline character is replaced with a line break. For example: With ~ set as the newline character: 483574387548~4434839~4782939029~ becomes in the output flow: 483574387548 4434839 4782939029 If not specified, the default newline character is a carriage return (ASCII 13), a line feed (ASCII 10), or a carriage return line feed.
Prefix	Defines a prefix that is added to all column names in the flow. If you want a space between the prefix and the column name, include that space in the prefix string definition. Any columns assigned an alias do not use the prefix; instead, the columns use the alias name.
Rename_Duplicates	Renames duplicate columns so that each column in the output data flow has a unique name. The duplicate naming process occurs before attributes defining aliases, prefixes, or the columns to keep are applied, so these generated column names can be aliases to another name. true—Creates new, unique column names for duplicate columns Subsequent columns with the same name are given the names name_2 ... name_(n) based on the positional order in the input. If for some reason, a column in the input flow already has this name, that number is skipped. For example, if the input flow already has a column named DESC_2, the object names the duplicate column DESC as DESC_3. false (default)—Duplicate column names are not renamed, and the duplicate columns appear in the output data flow
List	Controls whether the FTP input object returns a list of files or the contents of the named files. true—The FTP object returns a list of file names like the Directory input object. These file names match the file names and starnames listed in the Filename(s) or Starname(s) attribute or URL attribute. The list of file names appears as a data flow containing a single column that must be named Filename. false (default)—The FTP object returns the contents of the named files
Ignore_Line_End	Specifies whether or not parse errors dealing with the end of an input line are ignored. For example, Fixed field occurs past end of line or Too few fields. This attribute helps control processing when there are too few data items in an input row. true—Processes the line false (default)—Prints out a warning message, and skips the line
Ignore_Quotes	Specifies whether or not the beginning and ending quotation marks are ignored while keeping embedded quotes. This optional attribute is intended to be used in special cases only. true—Double quotation marks are passed in for processing, and they appear in the output flow. false (default)—Double quotation marks at the beginning of a field are stripped away, along with any trailing double quotation marks. If the delimiter value is a comma and is within a pair of double quotation marks, it is kept as part of the column value.
Mode	Defines whether the data is transferred in ascii or binary mode. ascii (default)—Data is transferred in ASCII mode. Characters such as carriage returns and newlines are converted to a standard format as part of the transfer. For text data, this should be sufficient. binary—Data is transferred in binary mode.
Encoding	Defines how files names are read and interpreted in terms of character encoding. Values include: auto—The input object sets the encoding based on the file signature and the Unicode state of other objects in the same task. ascii—The characters in the file are interpreted as ISO-8859-1 or Latin1 characters. gb18030—The file is interpreted as Chinese National Standard 18030-2000 characters. The gb18030 encoding option is supported on Windows platforms only. latin1—The characters in the file are interpreted as ISO-8859-1 or Latin1 characters. utf-8—The file is interpreted as UTF-8 Unicode characters. unicode—The file is interpreted as 2-byte Unicode characters (UCS-2) with native byte swapping, unless overridden by a UCS-2 file signature. unicode-be—The file is interpreted as UCS-2 characters in a big-endian fashion. unicode-le—The file is interpreted as UCS-2 characters in a little-endian fashion. UCS-2 and UTF-8 files can include a Byte Order Mark (BOM) at the beginning of the file to denote the file encoding. These file signatures are defined as follows: UCS-2 Big Endian—`FE FF` UCS-2 Little Endian—`FF FE` UTF-8—`EF BB BF` File signatures are common for Unicode files on Windows operating systems. If the file input object reads multiple files, the signature of each file determines its encoding. If the encoding attribute is auto and no signature is found, the encoding is assumed to be latin1 if no other object in the task handles Unicode data and the VI file is not encoded as utf-8 (using the charset 1208 directive). Otherwise, the encoding is assumed to be utf-8. See also Integrator Unicode Data Support.
Alias_Lines	Aliases can be set and edited in both the Alias_Lines attribute and the column grid. The column grid allows for graphical editing, while the Alias_Lines attribute is set at the code level in the following format: OldColumnName=NewColumnName For example: inv_nbr=Invoice Number Where Invoice Number is the alias for inv_nbr. The Alias_Lines method is useful for working with array parameters used as aliases. VI cannot process these array parameters because they are not in a format that VI can interpret. VI considers these array parameters to be malformed aliases and displays a warning message in the Logs tab. For example: Alias definition "$(ExternalAliases)" in object "From List" is not formatted as "OldColumn=NewColumn". When the line contains a parameter Integrator is most likely able to resolve it when the parameter is properly defined. To edit this alias definition use the "Alias_Lines" property. This message indicates that there is a malformed alias named $(ExternalAliases) in the object named From List. The array parameter displays as $(ExternalAliases) in the script. For VI to interpret this array parameter, you must assign an alias in the VI format. To assign an alias and resolve the error: Select the object in the task flow that is mentioned in the warning message. In this example From List. Click in the Alias_Lines field, and then click the browse button that appears. The Alias lines for <object_name> dialog box displays. Edit the alias in the form of: `OldColumnName=NewColumnName` In this example: `$(ExternalAliases)=External Aliases` Click OK. The array parameter has an alias, and the error message no longer appears.

Column Grid

The FTP column grid allows you to choose which metadata to include in the output data flow.

Attribute	Definition
Name	Displays the name of each input column. This attribute is read-only.
Alias	Defines alternate names for any of the input columns. Spaces before or after an alias column name are ignored. Spaces within an alias column name are acceptable.
Keep Order	Manages the order that columns display in the output data flow. By default, columns that are passed to the next object in the data flow are displayed in the order that they appear in the Name column. You can change this order by typing a number in the Keep Order column. When you assign a Keep Order number, the Keep column is checked automatically. The Keep Order numbers might reorder to accommodate any changes you make.
Keep	Manages which columns are kept in the output data flow. If no columns have a Keep check mark, all columns are kept in the output data flow, except for any explicitly marked Remove. Select the Keep check box for columns you want to explicitly keep in the output data flow. A number is automatically added in the Keep Order column when you select its Keep check box. After marking any column with a Keep check mark, only those marked Keep are kept in the output data flow. NOTE: After any Keep check boxes are checked, do not use the Remove check boxes as clicking a Remove check box sets all Keep check boxes to unchecked.
Remove	Manages which columns are removed from the output data flow. Select the Remove check box for columns that you want to explicitly suppress from the output data flow. NOTE: Use the Remove check boxes only when no Keep check boxes are checked.