Searching For Matching Records|Equivalents Files
Equivalents Files
Equivalents files are simple delimited text files that you can create to make custom conversions
on your data prior to matching. A couple of sample equivalents files are provided in the
distribution.
Simply choose the 'Edit Equivalents File' option from the Library Center, to view or edit one.
An equivalents file contains carriage return delimited records, with each record containing
one or more fields delimited by the comma (,) character.
All field values in the same record are deemed to be equivalent values in the matching process.
For example, if your equivalents file contains the following records :-
STEPHEN, STEVE, STEVEN, STEPHAN
DAVID, DAVE
All source file values for the selected (forename) column will be compared
with all entries in the equivalents file. Thus values such as STEPHEN and STEVE
will be deemed as equivalents and the value 'STEVE' will be converted to 'STEPHEN'.
All equivalents on a single line get converted to the FIRST value on the line.
Hence 'STEVE' will be converted to 'STEPHEN' and 'DAVE' becomes 'DAVID'.
Rules For Equivalents Files
Equivalent files :
- Must contain only carriage return delimited text records.
- Must have records consisting of comma (,) delimited fields.
- Can have records with variable numbers of fields.
- Leading and trailing white space is not significant when matching source file fields with
equivalents file fields.
- As with source file values, white space WITHIN the individual equivalents file fields is significant.
- Case is not significant.
- Words are replaced on a word for word basis.