Importing data

[ConwayMJ]

I'm opening it in Excel because I'm a newb that read a Tim Ferris book and now thinks he can create businesses out of thin air. Funny thing is that I've managed to convince a multi-millionaire that I could after saying how bad his websites were so now I am doing that because I'd rather not use my degrees in economics or accounting.

In all honesty though I am a quick learner when I have the available information but I just did not think to download a sort of SQL reader. I just double clicked the SQL file and Excel decided it was going to take the job so I went with it. Seems rather basic now that you've pointed that out. I'll try using that to edit it er something and post how that goes. Do you have any recommendations for SQL readers/writers?

[Website Rob]

Why don't you setup a separate 'test' area?

You should have a 'test' area anyway so you can test things. For example, setup a test store then Export the database. You can then see how things should be. Make changes, Import the changed database and see if anything broke.

Most any Spreadsheet can open a 'csv' file, which is a format phpMyAdmin will allow you to use. Excel has given many people problems I suggest using http://openoffice.com/ which is free and since using it, I have never needed to purchase or use MS Office.

[ConwayMJ]

lmao, yeah i'm def nubbed. apparently any standard text editor will do.... as for the error, i was getting a syntax error related to the use of quotes. i was just confused because i was not seeing the quotes when i opened up the file (which defaulted to Excel).

i opened it up in standard txt editor and see the quotes so we'll see what happens XD

[Website Rob]

Although any Text Editor can open a 'csv' or 'sql' file, as they are just text files anyway, using a Spreadsheet program gives some nice formatting to the text. All depends if you want formatting or not.

[ConwayMJ]

So it looks like that was it. Excel just hid the " " text wrappers so I just did not see them. Also found that Dreamweaver has an SQL reading capability but oddly enough I like the standard notepad better (with the Find/Replace function, it showed the lines each instance was on). Opened up the .SQL in Excel, copied Column A, then pasted it into Notepad to get this horrendous blob of characters I could not make heads or tails of without staring intensely at the monitor. Saved the file, changed the extension to .SQL and opened it in Dreamweaver to have it display all nicely (may be it would have displayed nicely if I had just reopened the file in Notepad but I did not check that).

At any rate, problem solved. Damn you Excel.....