Dumping data

The Dump feature allows you to view all the printable and non-printable characters in a record or a file in one or more of the following encodings:

  • Hex
  • ASCII
  • EBCDIC
  • Unicode (Unicode Analytics only)

You can use the Dump feature to troubleshoot problems with viewing or processing data, or to identify the data fields in a file.

  1. If you want to dump data for a particular record in an Analytics table, open the view and select the record.
  2. Select Tools > Hex Dump.
  3. If you want to dump data from a file, select File and then select the file in the Open dialog box and click Open.

    You can select an Analytics source data file (.fil), or another file type.

  4. Optional. In Skip Bytes, enter a value greater than zero to skip the specified number of bytes from the start of the file before dumping data.
  5. Optional. In Columns, specify the width of the output columns in bytes.

    Note

    The value you specify refers to the bytes contained by the Analytics record or table.

    The encoded characters in the output may not have a one-to-one relation with the characters in the record or table. For example, the hexadecimal encoding for the number 1 is 31.

    The default is 16 bytes for each column in a vertical display, and 64 bytes for the single column in a horizontal display. The maximum number of bytes you can specify is 255.

  6. Optional. Select Horizontal to display the character encodings in horizontal rows rather than in side-by-side vertical blocks (the default).
  7. Deselect any of the character encodings you do not want display: HEX, ASCII, EBCDIC, or Unicode (Unicode Analytics only).
  8. If you want to locate a particular value, do the following:
    1. Click Find.
    2. Enter the search string in the Find text box.
    3. Select the character encoding to search: ASCII, EBCDIC, or HEX.
    4. Select Ignore case if you want the search to be case-insensitive.
    5. In the Search from panel, select Top to search from the top of the file, or Cursor to start the search at the current cursor position. The currently selected position is displayed in the Position field in the Dump dialog box.
    6. Click Find.

      If a match is found, the location of the match is highlighted in each character encoding.

  9. Click Close  to exit the Dump dialog box.