ASCII vs. CSV

[#1]

Hello,

What are the advantages of loading ASCII file over CSV file and vice versa ? I know the what they are but I'm not sure what the best practice using either one of them. It would be great if someone can give a real life example and experience

Many Thanks

[raghu_ram1]

hii,

The ultimate goal of BW/BI is to generate a report at the top level. So we get the report in Excel sheet. It has rows n colums in it. We save the file in CSV format as it is comma separated. If u open the CSV excel file in notepad u can see the records separated by commas. It is easy to understand the file. So it is the main advantage of using a CSV format rather that going for ASCII.

So most of the times infact majority who use the flat files save the file in .CSV format.

hope it helps,

regards,

raghu.

[Former Member]

thanks for the answer,

like i said, i know what they are.What i am looking for is what are the typical scenario to use either CSV or ASCII. Requirments, nature or data etc. For example, use CSV for this or use ASCII for that

[Former Member]

Hi,

"The business reason is well known: better performance for a file with fixed fields length. Especially if you can place the file on the server."

Stolen from:

You should take a look... It is a blog about "How to create ASCII text file for upload to SAP BW" at the end you will found information for choosing the right format.

"If you want to upload a large amount of transaction data from a flat file, and you are able to specify the file type of the flat file, you should create the flat file as an ASCII file. From a performance point of view, uploading the data from an ASCII file is the most cost-effective method. In certain circumstances, generating an ASCII file might involve a larger workload."

From:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/1f/0e3237e5875249e10000009b38f936/frameset.htm

Additional info:

Regards

Andreas