Multi Text Parser

What Is It …

MTP is a general purpose, Mac only text parsing application that facilitates the extraction of data from one of three types of input; either incoming email, one or more text files or an ODBC database. The application reads blocks of text from each available email, text file or selected database row. Each block of text is parsed and tested against the selection criteria to determine if the text is to be further processed or if it is to be rejected. Further processing involves the location and extraction of one or more data strings that may then be used to construct output. Output may be written to a text file and/or a database and/or an outgoing email. The extraction of a data string is controlled by a set of rules that define how the data is to be located and filtered. The extraction rules are referred to as 'variables', which are identified by unique names. A variable thus symbolizes extracted data and can be referred to by name in subsequent parts of the process, such as the construction of outgoing email.

What You Can Do With MTP …

Do you find yourself regularly cutting and pasting information from incoming email sales notifications into a database in order to keep track of your customers. Maybe you are compiling the results of an survey that has generated a number of text files and you need to extract data from those files and write it to a database. Or maybe, you simply want to send automated emails containing data extracted from a database. All of these time consuming and error prone tasks can easily be automated with MTP.

How It Works …

The parsing and extraction of data from text files, an ODBC database or email messages is controlled by a parsing definition. A parsing definition consists of a series of settings that together describe what actions are to be taken. These settings are broken down into six separate segments that define ...

the source of the text to be parsed; text files, a database or incoming email

how data is to be extracted from the source text via one or more data extraction rules (variables)

the selection criteria that determines whether the text source is to be processed or not

how extracted data is to be used to construct text file output

how extracted data is to be used to construct database output

how extracted data is to be used to construct outgoing email

When a parsing definition has been created and tested it may then be processed. Processing a definition involves using the settings contained in the definition to direct the input, parsing and selection of blocks of text and then the extraction of data strings and their combination into output that may then be written to text file and/or database and/or an outgoing email.

The creation, editing, testing and processing of parsing definitions is controlled and limited by the application preferences.