Configure file formatting options for file-based destinations

IMPORTANT
The file formatting options described in this document are currently available for CSV files only.

The option to configure various file formatting options for the exported files is available to you when you connect to a file-based destination, such as Amazon S3, Azure Blob, or SFTP.

You can configure various file formatting options for exported files by using the Experience Platform UI. You can modify several properties of the exported files to match the requirements of the file reception system on your side, in order to optimally read and interpret the files received from Experience Platform.

File formatting configuration for CSV files file-configuration

To display the file formatting options, start the connect to destination workflow. Select Data type: Segments and File type: CSV to display the file formatting settings available for the exported CSV files.

IMPORTANT
The destination that you are connecting to may not have all these options available. It is up to the destination developer to determine which file formatting options they want to support in their destination. The destination developer can determine which options are available when connecting to the destination. Required options are marked with an asterisk in the Experience Platform UI.
The Adobe-built cloud storage destinations - Amazon S3, Azure Blob, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, Data Landing Zone, Google Cloud Storage, SFTP - currently only support the six CSV options highlighted below.

Image showing some of the available file formatting options.

Delimiter delimiter

Use this control to set a separator for each field and value in the exported CSV files. Available options are:

  • Colon (:)
  • Comma (,)
  • Pipe (|)
  • Semicolon (;)
  • Tab (\t)

Examples

View the examples below of the content in the exported CSV files with each of the selections in the UI.

  • Example output with Colon (:) selected: male:John:Doe
  • Example output with Comma (,) selected: male,John,Doe
  • Example output with Pipe (|) selected: male|John|Doe
  • Example output with Semicolon (;) selected: male;John;Doe
  • Example output with Tab (\t) selected: male \t John \t Doe

Quote character quote-character

Use this option if you want to remove double quotes from exported strings. Available options are:

  • Null Character (\0000). Use this option to remove double quotes from exported CSV files.
  • Double Quotes ("). Use this option to keep double quotes in your exported CSV files.

Examples

View the examples below of the content from exported CSV files with each of the selections in the UI.

  • Example output with Null Character (\0000) selected: Test,John,LastName
  • Example output with Double Quotes (") selected: "Test","John","LastName"

Escape character escape-character

Use this option to set a single character for escaping quotes inside an already quoted value. For example, this option is useful when you have a string enclosed in double quotes where part of the string is already enclosed in double quotes. This option determines which character to replace the inner double quotes with. Available options are:

  • Back slash (\)
  • Single quote (')

Examples

View the examples below of the content from exported CSV files with each of the selections in the UI.

  • Example output with Back slash (\) selected: "Test,\"John\",LastName"
  • Example output with Single quote (') selected: "Test,'"John'",LastName"

Empty value output empty-value-output

Use this control to set the string representation of an empty value. This option determines how empty values are represented in your exported CSV files. Available options are:

  • Null (null)
  • Empty String in Double Quotes (“”)
  • Empty string

Examples

View the examples below of the content from exported CSV files with each of the selections in the UI.

  • Example output with null selected: male,NULL,TestLastName. In this case, Experience Platform transforms the empty value into a null value.
  • Example output with “” selected: male,"",TestLastName. In this case, Experience Platform transforms the empty value into a pair of double quotes.
  • Example output with Empty string selected: male,,TestLastName. In this case, the Experience Platform maintains the empty value and exports it as it is (without double quotes).
TIP
The difference between the empty value output and the null value output in the section below is that an empty value has an actual value which is empty. The NULL value does not have any value at all. Think of the empty value as an empty glass on the table and the null value as not having the glass at all on the table.

Null value output null-value-output

Use this control to set the string representation of a null value within the exported files. This option determines how null values are represented in your exported CSV files. Available options are:

  • Null (null)
  • Empty String in Double Quotes (“”)
  • Empty string

Examples

View the examples below of the content from exported CSV files with each of the selections in the UI.

  • Example output with null selected: male,NULL,TestLastName. In this case, no transformation occurs and the CSV file contains the null value.
  • Example output with “” selected: male,"",TestLastName. In this case, Experience Platform replaces the null value with double quotes around an empty string.
  • Example output with Empty string selected: male,,TestLastName. In this case, Experience Platform replaces the null value with an empty string (without double quotes).

Compression format compression-format

Sets which compression type to use when saving data to file. Supported options are GZIP and NONE. This option determines whether you will be exporting compressed files or not.

Encoding

Not shown in the UI screenshot. Specifies encoding (charset) of saved CSV files. Options are UTF-8 or UTF-16.

Char to escape quote

Not shown in the UI screenshot. A flag indicating whether values containing quotes should always be enclosed in quotes.

Default is to escape all values containing a quote character.

Line separator

Not shown in the UI screenshot. Defines the line separator that should be used for writing. Maximum length is 1 character.

Ignore leading whitespace

Not shown in the UI screenshot. A flag indicating whether or not leading whitespaces from values being exported should be skipped.

Example output with True selected: "male","John","TestLastName"
Example output with False selected: " male","John","TestLastName"

Ignore trailing whitespace

Not shown in the UI screenshot. A flag indicating whether or not trailing whitespaces from values being exported should be skipped.

Example output with True selected: "male","John","TestLastName"
Example output with False selected: "male ","John","TestLastName"

Next steps next-steps

After reading this document, you now know how to configure file export options for your CSV data files to tailor the file contents to the requirements of your downstream file reception system. Next, you can read the file-based destinations activation tutorial to start exporting files to your preferred cloud storage location.

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