Data Compare: Replacement Support

[kjweber]

I have columns that contain some unimportant differences that I would like to filter out by way of Replacements, but it appears they are not supported in Data Compare. Other differences in the column are important, so I cannot just ignore the column.

An example would be I need to replace all '/' chars in a column with '_' chars (or treat them as not different) - is this possible within Data Compare in BC3?

Thanks!

[Aaron]

Hello,

The Text Replacements feature is currently only supported in the Text Compare session type. The Data Compare cannot be set to ignore a specific text difference like that.

If your files can be opened in the Text Compare, I would recommend giving that a try (Session menu -> Compare Files using Text Compare), but if the key column sorting is needed then this wouldn't quite work either.

The other workaround I can think of would be to add a preprocess to the Data format, which could create a temp file version that strips out all '/' characters of that column if they occur in the file and replace them with _.

[kjweber]

Hi Aaron,

I do need the key column sorting for this scenario.

In the second option, does adding a preprocess on the DataCompare modify all DataCompare sessions, or only the current session?

Thanks!

[Aaron]

For all Data Compare's that would use that format (matching on the file mask). If you never want this to be used automatically, you can create the format, then uncheck it in the main File Formats dialog. This prevents it from being used automatically, unless it is selected from the File Format's toolbar button dropdown or in the Session Settings.

You can then have a Saved Session that specifically uses that format, or select it manually when needed.