Power BI User on 09 Mar 2015 02:51:32
- Comments (74)
RE: dbf
I have a ton of dbf files which I need to Append - they came with ESRI shape files.
Its hard to explain why you can open a dbf file in Excel with no fuss, yet you cant from Power BI or Power Query.
I've tried the ODBC route, and I can get to the list of tables (dbf files) using Get Data. But when I select any table I always get this error:
Invalid SQL statement; expected 'DELETE', 'INSERT', 'PROCEDURE', 'SELECT', or 'UPDATE'
RE: dbf
Easy support for DBF is needed
DBF is still used in some accounting software today (and other sectors). It might not be the most fashionable or trendy data format but a lot a financial data was and still is stored that way. It really needs to be an easy format to connect to.
RE: dbf
From: Rick Labs
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2016 8:46 PM
To: Power Query v2 Feedback
Subject: Send a Frown - 2/9/2016 11:18 PM
dbase format is poorly supported, and trying to make ODBC work for dbf is exhausting.
dbf connection should be right under the "From Database" drop down.
not there so select ODBC, so ...enter hell
First asked for a connection string.
Oops forgot to tell the user enclose that in single quotes....
Enter
'Driver={Microsoft dBASE Driver (*.dbf)};DriverID=277;Dbq=C:\Users ick\Desktop\QGIS\LeonAppraiser\downtown.dbf'
Error
Details: "ODBC: ERROR [IM002] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified"
Search on the error:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-access/microsoftodbc-driver-manager-data-source-name-not/05912292-e7a6-4f65-96ae-91305706518b
Hummm 48762 views!
Guess a few people have had trouble with ODBC connection strings!
Endless searching and twiddling... hours of time lost.
No problem, call the DBA, call the guy in the glass house, get the system administrator.... Oh, forgot this is "self serve BI" there IS no DBA, there is no glass house, and the user IS the Sys Ad.
Well dbf is dead anyway, right?
Look at ESRI shape files (the defacto map standard around the WORLD, still very much in use today... Military, Federal, State, Local, construction industry, real estate, geo/demographics, mapping.... Every exchange of map data in ESRI shapefile format has a dbf related to the geometry.
you would think PowerQuery would eat this right up. A Use-case:
connect to the dbf
connect to a huge CSV, delimited, or fixed field size text file
Extract from the huge CSV file only those rows that correspond to a row in the dbf
calculate some new fields
output a new CSV file with the enhancements...
dbf is easily read direct in Excel, not exactly an "odd" or "newish" file structure.
opening dbf in all types of open source databa
RE: dbf
Add support for DBF files to PowerBi. This would make it possible to utilize legacy data without replicating it to SQL servers