I'd say you've probably got all the tools/info you need now to put together a solution that will work.
You've got the choice now of "having a go" and reporting back to the forum when/if you get stuck (you may prefer this route if you learn best by trial and error) or alternatively, you could provide a couple of additional clarifications on your data structures and someone may come up with a solution for you. As Rob suggested, the 2nd method may be less painful however it may not be the most instructive (or satisfying) for you. Clarifications: ---PackRat wrote: > the prefix indicating which database: b=bibliographic, > i=item, p=patron, o=order, etc. Since every item in the data file has > the same prefix, it's not really necessary for work with J, and, for > file writing purposes, it's not needed in the output file either-- > that's why I asked about the possibility of getting rid of it, too. Is there any way a lowercase letter might be the first character of a record (disregarding quotes), other than when it is one of these prefixes? > I believe this is a list of all possible variations of the data I'm > currently dealing with: > > 31184017063376 [14-digit barcode, pre-massaged] > "31184017063376" [same as above, but with quotation marks] > 1895721156 [10-digit book ISBN] > "1895721156" [same as above, but with quotation marks] > 15649131 [8-digit record identifier, pre-massaged] > b15649131 [same as above, but with recordtype prefix] > "b15649131" [same as above, but with quotation marks] > 047126847X [10-digit book ISBN with check digit "X"] > "047126847X" [same as above, but with quotation marks] > 1564926x [pre-massaged 8-digit record ID with check digit "x"] > b1564926x [same as above, but with recordtype prefix > "b1564926x" [same as above, but with quotation marks] > "AUTHOR: Iverson, Kenneth E." [a single item of pure textual data] Can 2 or more of these variations may be present in a single file or is there only one of these variations an individual file (disregarding any column headers)? > The data above that is enclosed with quotation marks also has a "non- > data" textual column header as the first datum in its file. > Here's an > example of that datum: > > "RECORD #(BIBLIO)" Are there any features that you can use to distinguish one of these column headers from say "a single item of pure textual data"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
