>>>>>How fast, how much data (no zip attached...) ?
>>>>>how much effort needed/expected for data cleaning ?
>>>>>(think export errors, bungled field separators included in text, false data formats if coming from Excel [date/time/text...],
>>>>>how much is it worth to you on Thursday?
>>>>>how much is it worth to you tomorrow ?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I have a zip file which contains many fields - I need to extract the data to a dbf file
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I cant work out how to do it
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The file is attached
>>>>>>Any chance anyone could create the dbf file
>>>>
>>>>Data is clean should have no errors
>>>>
>>>>Say Monday next week - how much will you charge?
>>>
>>>Many csv files most of which are not standard CSV file and needs to be handled with care. I assume it will be charged for no less than 5 man hours.
>>
>>Thanks I now have a free offer from an old colleague
>
>I didn't mean to do it anyway :) Just made the estimate.

My initial question was done assuming single large table with many fields -
1 or 2 kinks to straighten out, but only 1 coffee to think en passant, done in/under 1H including eyeballing.

I should have stopped as I saw 30something files in zip...
;-)

Probably would have taken as long as you estimated if *meticolous checks* were done by me on each file after processing -
was not really interested in such check-work.

My 2H minimum effort would either have brought over the bulk of the structures or the bulk of the data (largest files with repeatd errors fixed), and if even more data errors were hiding inside the zip, ***Colin*** would have to find+point them out, cutting down my effort to spend on the task in non-programming task.

happy new year to you - as your year is sooo much older than mine ;-)

thomas