delim_spec

The delim_spec clause is used to find the end (and if ENCLOSED BY is specified, the start) of a field. Its syntax is as follows:

If ENCLOSED BY is specified, then the access driver starts at the current position in the record and skips over all whitespace looking for the first delimiter. All whitespace between the current position and the first delimiter is ignored. Next, the access driver looks for the second enclosure delimiter (or looks for the first one again if a second one is not specified). Everything between those two delimiters is considered part of the field.

If TERMINATED BY string is specified with the ENCLOSED BY clause, then the terminator string must immediately follow the second enclosure delimiter. Any whitespace between the second enclosure delimiter and the terminating delimiter is skipped. If anything other than whitespace is found between the two delimiters, then the row is rejected for being incorrectly formatted.

If TERMINATED BY is specified without the ENCLOSED BY clause, then everything between the current position in the record and the next occurrence of the termination string is considered part of the field.

If OPTIONALLY is specified, then TERMINATED BY must also be specified. The OPTIONALLY parameter means the ENCLOSED BY delimiters can either both be present or both be absent. The terminating delimiter must be present regardless of whether the ENCLOSED BY delimiters are present. If OPTIONALLY is specified, then the access driver skips over all whitespace, looking for the first nonblank character. Once the first nonblank character is found, the access driver checks to see if the current position contains the first enclosure delimiter. If it does, then the access driver finds the second enclosure string and everything between the first and second enclosure delimiters is considered part of the field. The terminating delimiter must immediately follow the second enclosure delimiter (with optional whitespace allowed between the second enclosure delimiter and the terminating delimiter). If the first enclosure string is not found at the first nonblank character, then the access driver looks for the terminating delimiter. In this case, leading blanks are trimmed.

After the delimiters have been found, the current position in the record is set to the spot after the last delimiter for the field. If TERMINATED BY WHITESPACE was specified, then the current position in the record is set to after all whitespace following the field.

A missing terminator for the last field in the record is not an error. The access driver proceeds as if the terminator was found. It is an error if the second enclosure delimiter is missing.

The string used for the second enclosure can be included in the data field by including the second enclosure twice. For example, if a field is enclosed by single quotation marks, then it could contain a single quotation mark by specifying two single quotation marks in a row, as shown in the word don't in the following example:

'I don''t like green eggs and ham'

There is no way to quote a terminator string in the field data without using enclosing delimiters. Because the field parser does not look for the terminating delimiter until after it has found the enclosing delimiters, the field can contain the terminating delimiter.

In general, specifying single characters for the strings is faster than multiple characters. Also, searching data in fixed-width character sets is usually faster than searching data in varying-width character sets.