How to Use Notepad++ to See Special Characters In Your ASCII Import File
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Q - When trying to import the attached file, there is an error on line 30. Error message :The 1st Byte must be H, N, L, T, O or I. When the file is checked it appears that the data on line 31 is out of alignment by one space after the Line Item Description. Inserting a space moves the data back into alignment but the import returns the same error.
This has only happened twice in the last 18 months and I have not been able to find a way to fix the file other than to delete the order and enter it manually.
I have attached the file to be imported with the misaligned date and the error message. If I can find out what is causing this error I can look at getting the import file created correctly.
A - If you use Notepad++, on the menu choose "View" -> "Show Symbols" -> "Show All Characters." Then you will see that the import file clearly has a problem with both lines 29 and 30. See attached screen below:
Line 29 appears to be incomplete and was terminated prematurely by an [LF] special character after “FIELDSTONE VOGUE DINN FORK .” This caused the quantity, price and date to wrap to line 30. As far as the Elliott Sales Order import utility is concerned, the quantity, price and date are not required fields, so the import utility did not complain about line 29. Instead, it complained about line 30, which is the information that was part of line 29. As far as we can see, the import utility is behaving correctly.
Normally, in a line sequence ASCII file (like TXT), a record should be terminated by both characters of [CR][LF]. But if you should miss the [CR], most of the file systems are still OK with using only the [LF] character to terminate.
You should look at the source of where your data comes from, and prevent special characters like [LF] from getting into your line item description, which is the root cause of this problem.
Normally, in a line sequence ASCII file (like TXT), a record should be terminated by both characters of [CR][LF]. But if you should miss the [CR], most of the file systems are still OK with using only the [LF] character to terminate.
You should look at the source of where your data comes from, and prevent special characters like [LF] from getting into your line item description, which is the root cause of this problem.
EMK