When using character-mode synchronization, SQL Server uses tab characters to delimit fields and newline characters to delimit rows (or lines) in a character mode data file. If text or character fields within a table contain tab or newline characters, character-mode synchronization can fail because the data file that is used for synchronization cannot be processed correctly.
To perform character-mode synchronization of tables with tab or newline characters in data, SQL Server 6.5 allows alternate field and row delimiters to be specified for the synchronization task.
-rrow_delimiter -ffield_delimiter
where
Field and row delimiters must be sequences of characters that do not appear in any text or character fields in the table that is being processed. It is important to verify that the delimiters you use are character sequences that will not appear in the table that is being replicated. Otherwise, the synchronization task will be unable to associate data source files with columns in the target table when performing a character-mode synchronization.
When the task scheduler issues the synchronization event, it will use the field and row delimiters you have specified in the Command text box of the Edit Task dialog box.
The Edit Publications dialog box appears.
The Manage Scheduled Tasks dialog box appears.
The Edit Task dialog box appears.
Note If you know that tabs and newline characters will not appear in character data, then there is no need to make use of the row and field delimiter parameters.
This example uses <<FIELD>> and <<ROW>> as field and row delimiters:
-f<<FIELD>> -r<<ROW>>
This example uses _D1_ and _D2_ as field and row delimiters:
-f_D1_ -r_D2_