Hi

For a single DTS package, I have three data feed files.

When the DTS package runs, it really has to be confident of two things. The
first is that the three data feed files originate from the same data export
process and that the number of rows exported are the same as the number of
rows imported.

In more detail:
If the DTS package is doing incremental updates to the database, it needs to
run the updates in the correct order. Therefore, there needs to be some
meta data for each file that can tell the DTS package which export it came
from and provide some sort of ordering.

As far as the number of rows is concerned, an export process may export 1000
rows to a file. This file is then FTPd and it doesn't all arrive - 500 rows
are missing. The DTS package really wants to know whether the data feed
file is complete before it begins to process it.

Is there a standard way to hold this meta data? I presume that I could hold
it in the file name and delimit the file name in some way. The alternative
would be to hold it in the data feed file itself, but I'd need to find a way
of isolating this meta data from the real data to import. The third is to
have a separate meta-data file that contains all the info.

Which method is best? Any advice welcomed

Thanks in advance

Griff