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  /statelake/administering-statelake/designer/data-definitions/file-definitions/flat-file-definitions.md
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# Flat File Definitions

When selecting a **Flat File** type, a number of fields become available on the main screen that need populating.

A **Flat File** type **File Definition** can be used to interact with a text file that is in the style of a .CSV (comma separated value) file. In particular, these files have values across one record separated by a comma or other character, and each record is ended by a line break such as a CR/LF.  **Statelake Flat File Definitions** provide control over the characters to be read or written as field separators and line delimiters.

This allows both single record, and hierarchical flat files. **Flat Files** can be either fixed length or delimited.

## Type Specific Fields

| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Record delimiter | Select the method for terminating each record in the **Flat File**. |
| Auto-detect CR/LF | Only used when reading from a source file. Automatically checks the source file for Windows-style or Unix-style delimiters (line breaks). This might override the **Record Delimiter** setting on this definition if a different style delimiter is found. |
| Separated Fields? | Select to enable delimited fields, otherwise the fields are treated as fixed length. |
| Field Separator | Specify the ASCII character to use as the field delimiter. Enter the ASCII character code. |
| Use Quoted Strings | Disable the automatic trimming of blank spaces from the start and end of strings. |
| Quote Char | Specify the ASCII character to use as the quote character. Enter the ASCII character code. |
| Use Null Conversion | Select to enable null conversion that will convert between null values in the in-memory data definition and the specified Null String in the file. |
| Null String | Specify the string that null values will be converted to when written to a file, or converted from when reading from the file. |
| Top Lines Excluded | Enter the number of lines to exclude from the top of the file when loading into the File Definition. This can be used to ignore header rows. |
| File Encoding | Specifies the type of encoding. |
| Bottom Lines Excluded | Enter the number of lines to exclude from the bottom of the file when loading into the File Definition. This can be used to ignore footer rows or trailing markers. |
| Write BOM | Byte Order Mark. Controls whether a file is being written as “*little-endian*” or “*big-endian*”. |
| Add Record Delimiter to last line | When outputting to file you may need to add a record delimiter to the last line, essentially creating a blank row on the end. |
| Print Header Row | Select to print a header row containing the names of the fields when outputting to file. |
| Use loose quotes string checking | Select to enable less strict processing of files with quote characters. You should always attempt to process quoted files with this deselected first. |
| Ignore Invalid Lines | Select to ignore processing of invalid lines. Invalid lines will be dropped from the file but the rest of the data will load successfully. Use with caution. |
| Allow quoting of any data type | Allow any data type to be quoted rather than just string data types. |
| Ignore Extra Fields | Select to ignore extra fields on the end of the row. If you have only defined 5 fields but there is 11 in the file this will ignore the last 6 fields without error, otherwise an error will be raised. Use with caution. |
| Ignore undefined records | When loading a hierarchal file into memory of the **File Definition** if it encounters a record that has an ID that is not defined in the **Designer** it will ignore the record, otherwise it will add the record to the first dataview. You should not use this option with a single record type file that does not have a record id. |
| Ignore Invalid Numbers | Ignore fields with invalid numbers. Any field that is defined as a number that cannot be read from the file as such will be defaulted to 0, otherwise an error will be raised. Use with caution. |
| Ignore null/empty records | Tick the box to skip any blank or empty records. |
| Ignore truncated field data | Tick the box to turn off error generation for data values in the file that are bigger than the size that has been defined in the definition. |
| Ignore warnings for date/time fields with invalid mask format | Tick the box to turn off error generation where the data values in the file for date/time fields do not match the mask format (**Display Format** setting) specified in the definition. |