When Daisy was being developed, it was realised that databases would be processed from a variety of sources, some of which would be easier to access than others.

For this reason a simple approach was taken in that all versions of the program can read Microsoft Excel workbooks and comma-separated or CSV files. These two formats can usually be obtained by using a simple conversion program.

Larger versions of Daisy can read other common formats, such as databases connected through Microsoft ADO.

This may seem restrictive but there are very good reasons for using simple formats, such as a CSV file :-

• CSV files are very simple and can be read very quickly, thus increasing the performance of the analysis.

• Daisy does not modify the original database and performs faster without locking on a separate copy of the data. CSV files tend to be smaller and are easily moved from machine to machine.

• Daisy supports multi-line fields in the CSV file.

• When Daisy analyses a database it reads the file several times, so the compact and simple format of the CSV file speeds the analysis.

See Open Database in the Help for more details.