If you need any help (googled or otherwise) to answer that question then you're clearly not qualified for the position in question and should probably stop wasting their time and yours (and, well, ours). Not to mention you need help with your reading comprehension since "fixed width" is clearly in reference to "fixed width flat files" (not that a googled answer on that is really going to get you through the interview process either).
(Yes, I'm being slightly cruel and curmudgeonly; it's virtual Monday. BMSMA.)
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
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I was in the field for years before I realized that my system admin code (grep, awk, cut, on flat files) qualified as 'database' work. Thus, even if this isn't strictly a valid Perlish question, I don't think that the question is inherently bad.
Note: This may have something to do with the fact that half of my posts might be invalidated if we insisted that I actually provide technical insight on everything I say. :)
In any event, if you treat a flat file as a database table, each line of input becomes a database "row." In that context, you can identify "fields" in that table by their relative position in the line (fixed width), or by split /x/ on some character (delimited). If you sysread() your data, I guess you could treat it as binary. Does anyone do this any more? I don't think I've done it since I worked (in C) under VAX/VMS, and it's mostly been supplanted in the database world by BLOBs (binary large objects).
Having now said this, if you are trying to get a database job that isn't entry level, you're probably overmatched (as Fletch has stated). But that said, I never object to people wanting to grow in knowledge. If you show a willingness to make the effort to learn, it may just get you where you want to be.
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[d/l]
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Your post title is misleading since the question you seem to be trying to answer is asking about your experience with various brand name database products, as well as using flat file databases, such as delaminated (comma delaminated etc), or fixed width.
See Flat File database for an explanation. Is this question from some sort of job application form?
Martin | [reply] |
Nothing to do with perl or SOPW. Not mysqlmonks. | [reply] |
Now that is a fine idea. SUN will certainly like it and may throw money at it too.
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Yes. I consider monitors to be part of the dev environment.
My gripe is that editors more and more are not moving things to the appropriate forum (and approving non perly things). It's raising the signal to noise ratio..which is fine, if we all want to move towards general IT consulting.
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