Specifies the data (i.e. title, series values & captions, categories, etc) directly from a text file.

void object.SetDataFromTxtFile( String filename,
                                      boolean seriesincolumn,
                                      boolean titlesinfirstrow,
                                      boolean titlesinfirstcolumn )

Arguments

object: Required. A Chart object.
filename: Required. A string that specifies the name of the text file that contains the data.
seriesincolumn: Required. A boolean value that specifies whether data series are in columns or in rows.
titlesinfirstrow: Required. A boolean value that specifies whether the first data row should be interpreted as titles (i.e. series captions or categories names).
titlesinfirstcolumn: Required. A boolean value that specifies whether the first data column should be interpreted as titles (i.e. series captions or categories names).

Remarks

Before calling the SetDataFromTxtFile method, you must specify the separator characters used to delimit the data in the text file identified by filename. To specify the separator characters as well as separator rules, see the SetSeparators method.

If the text file identified by filename is in unicode, you must call the SetUnicode method to specify that the SetDataFromTxtFile method should treat text files as a unicode (UTF-16).

If both titlesinfirstcolumn and titlesinfirstrow are set to true then data located in the first cell (i.e. first column and first row) are interpreted as the title of the chart.

If the system fails to open the text file identified by filename, the SetDataFromTxtFile method raises an error.

Parsing Rules According to the Chart Type

Swiff Chart Generator can produce various types of charts, either Column charts, Pie charts, Line charts or even XY-Scatter charts. The chart type is always specified in the Swiff Chart style file (.scs file, see How to Create Styles to learn more about styles). For this reason, data stored in a text file are not interpreted the same way for all the chart types.

If the chart plot type is Columns, Bars or Lines then Swiff Chart Generator requires a set of individual series to display the chart. Therefore, the text data are parsed and interpreted as a set of individual series.

However, if the chart plot type is XY-Scatter or XY-Curves then Swiff Chart Generator requires a set of series pairs to display the chart. Therefore, the text data are parsed and interpreted as a set of series pairs (first series for X values, second series for Y values). In this particular case, if the number of data series in the text file is odd, then the last data series are omitted.

The following text file contains 2 series.

Series1;12;7.5;11.3;9.2;5.3
Series2;14;9.9;13.1;11.5;4.9

If the chart type is Columns, Bars or Lines: Data are interpreted as 2 individual series of values (12, 7.5, 11.3, 9.2 and 5.3) and (14, 9.9, 13.1, 11.5 and 4.9).
If the chart type is XY-Scatter or XY-Curves: Data are interpreted as a single series of XY Points (12,14), (7.5,9.9), (11.3,13.1), (9.2,11.5) and (5.3,4.9).

JSP Sample Code

The following JSP code sample illustrates use of the SetDataFromTxtFile method in a JSP page.

Here is a plain ASCII text file, named data.txt that contains the data we want to apply to the chart object.

TitleOfMyChart;North America;South America;Europe;Middle East;Asia
Year 2006;12;7.5;11.3;9.2;5.3
Year 2007;14;9.9;13.1;11.5;4.9

Before importing the text file, we must specify the separator characters and set some variables.

// The text file has titles in columns as well as in rows
// The  character ";" is the character separator in text file data.txt
String sep= ";";
boolean ignoremultseparators= false;

// Before going further we must specify the separators of the text file
chart.SetSeparators(sep, ignoremultseparators);

// Let's load the graphical layout of the chart
chart.LoadStyle( "C:\\myStyle.scs" );

// the first text line contains the title and categories names: "TitleOfMyChart;North America;South America..."
boolean titlesinfirstrow= true;

// the first text column contains the title and series captions: "TitleOfMyChart", "Year 2006" and "Year 2007"
boolean titlesinfirstcolumn= true;

Calling the SetDataFromTxtFile method with the parameters below...

boolean seriesincolumns= false;
chart.SetDataFromTxtFile( "C:\\data.txt", seriesincolumn, titlesinfirstrow, titlesinfirstcolumn );

...leads to the following data stored in the chart object memory:

Title	MyChartTitle
Categories		North America	South America	Europe	Middle East	Asia
Series 1	Year 2006	12	7.5	11.3	9.2	5.3
Series 2	Year 2007	14	9.9	13.1	11.5	4.9

However, calling the SetDataFromTxtFile method with the parameters below...

boolean seriesincolumns= true;
chart.SetDataFromTxtFile( "C:\\data.txt", seriesincolumn, titlesinfirstrow, titlesinfirstcolumn );

...leads to the following data stored in the chart object memory (maybe NOT what you would expect):

Title	MyChartTitle
Categories		Year 2006	Year 2007
Series 1	North America	12	14
Series 2	South America	7.5	9.9
Series 3	Europe	11.3	13.1
Series 4	Middle East	9.2	11.5
Series 5	Asia	5.3	4.9

Arguments

Remarks

Parsing Rules According to the Chart Type

JSP Sample Code

See Also