Terminator V1.0.37

Ever tried to open 1 Gig ASCII file with Notepad? WordPad?
Do you remember ASCII codes of Tab and Carriage Return?  
What about if your have to load data from a file with
changed unknown record length, field length, field offset? 
Can you detect them by looking at DLT tape?

Enter Terminator - huge ASCII file viewer and BCP helper. Terminator 
reads top 10 (and more if asked) records of ASCII file of any size. It 
detects record terminators and calculates current cursor position 
(field offset) and length of selected area (field length).
 
I wrote Terminator after I got tired of data suppliers constantly 
changing record layouts and terminators, probably without even knowing.

If you work with MS SQL Server BCP utility and/or use BULK INSERT, 
which are the fastest when it comes to import huge ASCII files,
then you will find Terminator helpful. 

How to use.

1. Open an ASCII file to view. Program reads first 10 records. 
Use 'More' button to view more records (up to about 32k bytes 
max, VB textbox limitation).

You can drag-and-drop file from Explorer to Terminator.

2. Program detects end-of-line symbol(s) aka terminator(s). One 
has to know terminator(s) to use MS SQL Server BCP or BULK INSERT
SQL statement. 

Here are terminators recognized by Terminator ( .FRM file notation).
   \t Tab
   \n Newline character
   \r Carriage return
   \0 Null terminator (no visible terminator)

3. Program also calculates some characteristics useful for making 
.FRM format files used by BCP and BULK INSERT:
 - record length
 - current position (field) offset. Just click on the beginning of the 
   field position.
 - selected area (field) length. Select or double-click to select a field.

Setup.

If you already have MSVBVM60.DLL and COMDLG32.OCX, you need only 40K 
Terminator.exe. Otherwise you can download full setup package, unzip 
Terminator_Setup.ZIP and run setup.exe

Tested under Windows 98SE, ME, NT and W2K. Never used full setup.

History.

06/30/04 V1.0.37 Added Read Max button: read as many records as possible
		 within memory limit.

04/27/03 V1.1.35 Added MRU files.
                 Added warning for > 1024byte records line wrap.

04/22/03 V1.0.33 BUGFIX: fixed 2 bugs introduced in 1.0.32.

04/02/03 V1.0.32 Added EOF message.
		 Added keyboard support (recalc. offset, lengths, Record #)
		 BUGFIX: prevent erase of terminator display on small file.
                 When reading small file (<5 or <10 records) record 
                 terminator display was blank.
		 BUGFIX: error in offset calc on some files fixed. 
		 BUGFIX: variable length records now processed correctly.
11/01/02 V1.0.23 Fixed disappearing hourglass glitch.
		 Fixed freeze on slow reads.
		 Reduced to 5 number of records read in byte mode.	
09/18/02 V1.0.21 First public release. 

Known problems. 

1. Long (> 1024 bytes) records wrap when displayed.
This is probably VB textbox limitation.

2. Terminator uses byte mode to read first record. If Terminator finds 
carriage return then it uses line input which is much faster. If there 
are no carriage return, Terminator can be slow, especially over network.
 
3. Terminator is not good with accidental control characters inside text. 
They are not visible and can cause line wrap etc.

4. 64K limit - can't read more than 64K of data.

5. Can't detect and display UNICODE.

Terminator is freeware. Have fun.

Thanks to !conMania http://iconmania.8m.com for the Terminator icon!

Email bugs and suggestions to Vadim Frenkel vadimfrenkel@yahoo.com 

More freewares from Vadim  (search winsite.com):
- NETmatch   .NET add-in matches parentheses, doublequotes and keywords.
- VBmatch    VB6 add-in matches parentheses, doublequotes and VB keywords. 
- ScriptCalc VBScript/JScript expression calculator. 