DSXchange

No reason not to have two User Variables activities; defined var1 in the upstream one and refer to that in the downstream one.

The leading space is for the sign character. You can only remove it by converting the data type to VarChar and applying a function such as TrimF to it.

Welcome aboard. :D

Sort your data by both columns. Use stage variables in a Transformer stage to detect change and to reset the counter. Search the forum for examples.

Is there a second message box? When you initiate the View Data, click the View OSH button; see what you can discern from the OSH generated to fetch the data, particularly the record schema therein.

How would you collect statistics after a MultiLoad operation not coming from DataStage? Basically what you have to do is either mimic that approach in DataStage - possibly another job - or script it - perhaps invoking that script from DataStage.

The palette is specific to job type - if you have a parallel job open the stages are relevant to parallel jobs, if you have a server job open the stages are relevant to server jobs, if you have a job sequence open the activities on the palette are pertinent there. You might also look at the subcateg...

The message suggests that it's not evaluating the environment variable reference, but instead trying to use it literally (as the actual name of a subdirectory). At the moment I can't suggest a workaround. But complaining to the vendor may be satisfying, if only briefly.

If you trim a Char datatype in a parallel job, the result is immediately padded with the character specified in APT_STRING_PADCHAR. You will therefore also need to convert both columns (only temporarily if necessary) to VarChar.

Given that it's from a "mapping spreadsheet" I suspect it's the former.

You don't have to change it for output. Block on the standardized name, not on the firstname field.

Yes, there are several strategies available.
Difference, Compare and Change Capture stages spring immediately to mind.

Did a message box appear offering to display the results/error messages associated with the View Data attempt? If so, what additional information were you able to glean from that?

I agree. To assemble a timestamp from date and time is not possible in Modify, whose functions accept only one argument. Nor can any function in the Modify stage generate new data (other than handle_null).

One possibility is a pre-transfer command to cat the files.