Force Character Column Data Type for Open() and Multiple File Import()

[nikles]

Hi.  I propose there should be an optional argument that forces all columns to be Character Data Type for both the Open() and Multiple File Import() commands.  This request is similar to, but not exactly the same, as these 2 requests:

https://community.jmp.com/t5/JMP-Wish-List/Excel-Import-specific-column-types-or-formats/idi-p/24813... 

https://community.jmp.com/t5/Discussions/Force-column-from-CSV-import-as-Character-not-Numeric-Date/... 

The first link requests the ability to manually specify column data type for Excel files in the Open() GUI, whereas my request is addressing usage of the Open() command in a script, not the GUI, and applies to both csv and xlsx files.  The second link appears to apply only to MFI() and csv files, whereas, I would like this ability for both MFI() and Open(), and for both csv and xlsx files.

I realize there exist various scripting methods that could do this for certain scenarios, although not all. Some of these methods might require you to know the column names/locations in advance, or require that the column names always be on the first row.  This is not something we necessarily have control over.  

I feel having a single option to set would simplify this greatly for many users.  Also, this would save time since JMP would not need to spend time scanning the file to detect column data type.  Lastly, my feeling is that this could be low-hanging fruit to implement, in that you'd just be turning off the portion of the internal code that scans each column.

Hope this is possible.  Thanks.

[SamGardner]

@nikles thank you for the suggestion.  We will take this under consideration.

[jbakri]

I was just about to write a request for exactly this! I need to specify the data type for column in a table I am importing from a csv file. The data in the file changes daily. If the first entry in a column is a number, it makes the column continuous/numeric. If the first entry contains a letter, it makes the column nominal/character. The problem I am having is that when the data comes in as continuous/numeric all the entries containing letters are lost. I would like the ability to specify what the data type is as part of the SQL command (i.e. SELECT t1.ColumnX AS Character... or something like that).

Thank you!

[MWalther]

I strongly suppport this issue. The import does not really deal with some typical issues of file import.

Thus an Option enforcing Character would help.

To state some of (my) issues (Maybe they can be evaluated, since they are similar options for open,...)

1.) allow a komma (or other as an option) as a decimal separator for numeric columns

2.) allow to specify the expected input Format for date/time columns

If we have this options, JMPs "guess" about columns (outside the english speaking world) may be better....

[jetpeach]

i also would really like to see the ability to set column types on import of csvs.