DFIU — the thing you LOVE and HATE

DFIU is the name of the side program that allows to you upload data into Exploris. Many years ago when I was on the Exploris Committee when it was rolling out – I remember others mentioning how important it was for their ability to add lines like Sthil Power products in the USA market …. an X line — as any line note supported or sold by CARQUEST.

Over the years we have used DFIU quite a bit … but recently more than normal ‘snags’ have come up. And some were my fault ( that hurts to say ) …. in part because I love using my Mac for as much as I can … ( remember I have VMWare only Mac running Exploris )

OK – lets look at issues ….

#1- too many blank lines …. in the past I could open a csv ( or text ) file back into MS Word and see the offending CR LF issues ( side note – Windows handles line feeds & carriage returns different than Mac different than Linux – google this ) .. but I can’t see to do this now — finally I grabbed Noteplus++ for my Windows side of the computer … and when I see this … I know I have a problem

But — there are other issues … presently working with Tier 2 to help figure out why DFIU posts errors ( similar to when your columns do not match your header ( like you forgot to strip out a comma in the parts description ) … short answer to a very long problem … it seems when moving ‘some’ data from Mac to Windows side for entry in DFIU –I am getting more blank line issues …BUT …if you open in Note Pad++ and save … these extra backlines go away .

And-here I was thinking that suppliers had special non-ascii characters in their part # or desc ( I have examples in the past of this — unsure if Autologue have changed any limits??

One can only hope that Autologue speeds up their improvements in DFIU to give better explanations of error messages … stay tuned …more is coming.

======. update ==== info from Tier 2 =====

Something is happening to make blank lines …it is the Mac-PC-Linux this in some way …..Image #1 is Notepad++ from my windows side of laptop

Image #2 is what Tier 2 sees for the same file also on notepad++ –any idea’s out there ?

PS – Mind you –Autologue could add some code to DFIU to skip blank lines and not send an error message that doesn’t match the problem … ?? hint …please …