Import from Text Files

Overview

Data import via text file (.txt or .csv) is a flexible route for importing text data e.g. an export from a company database. The text import route is especially suited to large files, as it only brings in part of the file at a time.

Version: 1.7.2+ (Aug 2017)

Usage: Project --> Import data --> Import text data...

How to use in practice

Text Data Import

When importing a text file a process is followed, which can be broken into the following steps:

Select the file to be imported. By default we look for files with a .txt, .csv, .asc, .tsv, .raw, and .log file extension. If your file has a different extension you can select to look for all files *.*.
Stage 1 - Configure the file reader: a display of the files first 100 lines of data is provided along with tools to define the file structure.
Stage 2 - Property linking: where you can define the relation between the properties in your file and the IGI property model.
During the actual data import an import summary screen shows progress and any issues encountered.

Stage 1: Configure the file reader

During stage 1 the user is given the option to configure the structure of the text file being imported. This is shown below:

The software will attempt to auto-select several features of the text file, in particular:

Property delimiter - the character / code that is used to separate columns in the file.
Sample delimiter - the code that is used to specify the end of a line.
Optional Wrapping Symbol - the symbol used to enclose strings to allow other embedded special characters such as line feeds, or the property delimiter.

In general these should be reliably auto-detected, and should not be changed, unless you are confident they are wrong. The preview will adjust to your choices dynamically.

The user can also change the row on which the properties are defined, and on which units are defined, if present. It is possible that units are contained in the property row in which case the user can specify the method used to specify the units, for example being contained in ().

If needed the user can also specify the row on which the data starts.

The user can specify the default datums to be assumed for the well absolute datum (what the software should interpret as zero depth) and also the sample measured depth / true vertical depth datums. Typically these will be the well Kelly Bushing, but could be mean sea level or some other reference depth. It is important these values are defined, in order for the depth conversion and associated logic to work in the system.

When importing date and time data (version 2.0+) it is also possible to specify the date-time format used (where this is ambiguous). The default will be your computers' current region settings. This is relevant for dates such as 01/08/2021 which would be interpreted as the 1st of August 2021 in most parts of the world, but in the USA and some other places would be read as the 8th of January 2021. If you know your data has dates in the US format (MM/DD/YYYY) you can force import to use US format, and if you are in the US and know the data uses 'UK' format (DD/MM/YYYY) you can force the use of this format. In general we would suggest using an unambiguous date format (e.g. ISO8601) like 2021-08-01 which will be interpreted as the 1st of August in all countries.