Data type detection in 'Import table' is somewhat lossy

[AaronAcephalous]

When importing a table containing a column of IP address data (found at http://randsco.com/index.php/2007/07/04/may_and_june_spam_stats), Strata considered the IP address column to be numeric with three decimal places, which had a predictably unfortunate effect on the data.

In itself, that wouldn't be a big deal, because you can just go into design view and set that column to character type by hand. In fact, that's what I did, but it didn't do the trick; going back into table view, you find that the IP addresses are still truncated. I wasn't able to find any workarounds for this; I didn't try anything like generating a CSV from the table and then having Strata import that because if we have to do that then the terrorists have won.

What I'd really like it to do would be to separate the literal data as imported from the table and the representation of that data that's being displayed in the table, so that conversions between data types don't risk the permanent loss of information. Doing it that way would also have the benefit of not requiring any kind of complicated data-type guessing, or playing twenty questions with the user before actually importing the data; you can just take your best guess at it, and if it doesn't work out the user can easily correct it with no harm done.

Hope this helps!

[Ken]

Thanks for the report, you are correct on all accounts... Strata shouldn't eat your data like this and, by no means, should it let the terrorists win.

We need to work on the auto-sensing area a bit more. It has come a long way from even a few weeks ago, but still has further to go. Thanks.

#104

[Ben]

This bug has been fixed in our release branch. You'll see the fix in the upcoming second beta.

Thanks much for the report.

Best,
Ben