I am looking to import 7million rows worth of data from a flat text
file. all the rows seem to be copied over but they are not arranged
like they are in the flat file. each row in the text file is a record
and there are no column delimiters. hence the table should have only
on column. also note that i type in odd characters for the column
delimiter since it is require to set up the dts package.

any ideas will be greatly appreciated
let me know if you have any questions

thanks

I think this is the normal behaviour for SQL Server. Data is not guaranteed
to be returned in any specific order unless you use an ORDER BY clause. You
may consider something like inserting into a table with an IDENTITY value for
the PK and order by that Identity value.

-Pete

robert_emoghene (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (rob) wrote:

Peter is correct.

Without an ORDER BY clause the order is _NOT_ guaranteed. Seeing as you
cannot use any funky stuff on a flat file you will need to import into a
staging table then from there into your proper table


Allan


"Peter A. Schott" <pschott (AT) no (DOT) spamm.hear.drivefinancial.com> wrote in
message news:b4v5l093me7pm8s0joeu88van6jdf8oq0s (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...

thanks Guys, the light finally came on. i was trying to import a flat
file where 4,5 or 6 rows make a record. sqlserver will not guarantee
the exact sequence in the flat file, so I wrote a vb app to recreate
the flat file with an extra column (rowcount). now i have a row to
order my results by giving me the exact arrangement i had in flat
file. yep i did need an intermediary table to create my table ordered
by row number.
thanks again
let me know if you have any questions