Read entire line of External File

I need to create a new input file and add a header row before the data. The data has a variable number of fields and if the first row does not have the total number of possible fields, it simply ignores the rest of the line...

 

Since I can't use ActiveX file objects and the ReadLine() method... what else can I do?

 

Thanks for any help.

Your first record should contain all the possible fields, even if the contents of fields are empty. When we use XML data, the first record is usually all null values just to "initiate" the fields. If you're asking how to add the header row itself, wouldn't you just handle that in a spreadsheet or text editor app (or am I misunderstanding what you are trying to do)?

Yes I would normally... but this is a daily job that we need to keep as automated as possible.

 

I was able to resolve my issue by using ExternalDataFile instead of ExternalDataFileEx. Also, when looping through the fields, instead of ending at the "FieldCount", I manually set the number to the maximum number of possible fields that are in the data.