Dayfile data issue

[oddirt]

First, huge thanks to the developers for a fantastic software package. I started using Cumulus in 2015 and changed over to MX in 2020 without importing settings and data between the versions. I'm running the latest release.

I finally got around to copying in data from the old Dayfile.txt to my current one. I stopped MX, backed up Dayfile and added the data using Notepad in Windows.

Most of the data appear to be correct. However, there are some lines where the comma (my system's CSV separator) after the date is not read as a data field break by MX and I'm not sure why. Here are the dates that are causing problems:

11/7/15
12/7/15
6/9/15
9/9/15
7/1/16
5/1/17
9/2/17
12/9/17
5/10/17
10/2/18
11/2/18
6/10/18
1/12/18

I searched the forums for similar issues but could not find any. My system's decimal separator is a period. Dayfile.txt is attached, along with a screenshot from the Cumulus web interface.

Screenshot 2023-01-16 220145.png

Any help would be much appreciated.

[flort]

I couldn't see any issues with the formatting of your dayfile but did notice you have a mixture of 2 digit and 4 digit years. Not sure if that might cause any issues but would be worth correcting for consistency and the off chance it resolves the problem.

Regards,
Trevor

[Grouper]

Hi.
A few observations on your dayfile :-
The date should be dd/mm/yy eg. 11/07/15 rather than 11/7/15.
The number of decimal places seems to be inconsistent between the same field in different rows.
There seems to be only 51 fields, the latest version of dayfile is 53 fields. (EDIT: I notice that the latest spec says 55 fields ! Mine has 53)
Also worth checking the fields shown in your dayfileheader.txt file in the CumulusMX directory is aligned with your dayfile.txt fields.

Be careful if you use Excel to edit your dayfile as it can introduce unwanted format changes. Best to use Notepad++ or similar.

Hope this helps.

[mcrossley]

I think all the relevant bits have been picked up.

The date format is strict - DD/MM/YY, you have a mixture of different formats.

The number of decimals should not matter, so long as the correct fields are either decimal or integer.

The number of fields in the file has varied with time - more fields getting added over time. Once you have the current data formatted correctly then you can try the CreateMissing utility to add the additional fields where they are missing.

And yes, do not use Excel to edit the data files unless you are a very experience user in importing/exporting data - it will likely mess things up.

[oddirt]

Thank you, flort, Grouper and Mark for taking a look! I'll try making the edits and report back on what effect they have. Much appreciated.

[oddirt]

I'm happy to report that fixing the date format corrected the issue. Thanks again for the help!