Monkeydust.net

I couldnt resist posting this, everytime i think xkcd couldnt get any better they go post something like this!

Of course, now xkcd posted this, how long till someone goes off and actually makes this

(incase the image doesnt show, heres the original xkcd post)

As part of my new job im left dealing with a whole series of databases, and one of the regular jobs is to update them from various sources. Normally that involves extracting data as a CSV file from the main database, which then needs to be edited and checking in excel because all the table names need changing so that when you import it into the database system used within the office it matches the fields used there. Also the conversion to csv seems to introduce random characters in fields, so as part of the process you also have to check all the data and make sure it doesnt contain any of these random characters before finally importing it and hoping everything works.

Now incase this didnt sound too painful, while most of the time there are only a few new records, im about to get to the one time of year where we receive in excess of 2500 new records. And while in previous years it may have been accepted that you need to manually check them, i *really* dont want to have to waste a day (and my sanity!) checking all this data.

So we get to my problem(s), not only am i stuck using windows (bad!), but ive also got a crappy CRT monitor (my eyes!), and finally i have to spend half my time working with a custom frontend to an oracle database which is written in java and helpfully launches from inside IE and is so obtuse and badly designed i feel sick everytime i use it!

However, getting away from my severe java allergies :p im hitting a roadblock in terms of automating at least some of this, originally i was going to try out my python skills, till i realised i really dont know anything, so i resorted to using PHP. In both cases though, despite some googling there seem to be very few, if any, decent tutorials/guides to working with CSV files. So my question plea is for any guides/tutorials or any decent documentation for working with CSV files in PHP. Im open to pretty much anything as the best ive found is for pretty much just opening the file and reading it.

Now all i have to do is dust off my PHP skills and hope i can throw something together that works!

Well, i figured i should at least post something here Thanks to beandog for adding me planet larry, although lately my work with linux has taken a downturn. For those who somehow found my blog beforehand (ie. no one) would have known ive been playing around with building a gentoo based livecd. Thats had to take a backseat for now, its still something i want to do, even if using catalyst can be a pain at times. My thinking now is that im going to save myself some trouble and use sysrescuecd as a base as they too use catalyst and seem to have working X autoconfig (which was my main stumbling block), they also have a few other cool bits that i like, so it makes sense to start with them.

Ive also started a new job lately which has left me with more free time, but due to an early start im more tired so what free time i have is being used up with me being tired and lazy, lately thats meant playing eve-online and not doing stuff i should be.

Im determined to get something done, who knows, maybe il finish off this livecd soon!