Column-Aligned Text (CAT) Reader Parameters

Set the file text encoding if it is known.

If this parameter is not set, the default is Windows Latin-1 (windows-1252).

Identifies the number of lines to skip at the top of the file. It is useful to enter a value here if the Column-Aligned Text file contains a header line of field names or other descriptive material that should be skipped.

By default, all lines are included.

These areas list the name, type, and width of the fields that comprise a row.

Fields containing X, Y, or Z-Coordinates will comprise the point geometry of the feature, while fields with the type Integer, Real, or String will be attributes.

Click the ruler in Field Boundaries to add, remove, or move field boundaries.

Check Do Not Use to skip a field.

Filter names based on the Row Number.

• When checked: Enter a starting Row Number and include field names in Field Properties.
• When unchecked: Use column numbers.

Filter names based on the list in Field Properties. White space is trimmed from the value before matching.

Invert Filter

• Check this option to exclude rows that match the filter.
• Uncheck this option to include only rows that match the filter.

Use this parameter to expose Format Attributes in FME Workbench when you create a workspace:

• In a dynamic scenario, it means these attributes can be passed to the output dataset at runtime.
• In a non-dynamic scenario, this parameter allows you to expose additional attributes on multiple feature types. Click the browse button to view the available format attributes (which are different for each format) for the reader.

Coordinate systems may be extracted from input feature data sources, may come predefined with FME, or may be user-defined. FME allows different output and input coordinate systems, and performs the required coordinate conversions when necessary.

For systems that know their coordinate system, the Coordinate System field will display Read from Source and FME will read the coordinate system from the source dataset. For most other input sources, the field will display Unknown (which simply means that FME will use default values). In most cases, the default value is all you'll need to perform the translation.

You can always choose to override the defaults and choose a new coordinate system. Select More Coordinate Systems from the drop-down menu to open the Coordinate System Gallery.

Changing a Reprojection

To perform a reprojection, FME typically uses the CS-MAP reprojection engine, which includes definitions for thousands of coordinate systems, with a large variety of projections, datums, ellipsoids, and units. However, GIS applications have slightly different algorithms for reprojecting data between different coordinate systems. To ensure that the data FME writes matches exactly to your existing data, you can use the reprojection engine from a different application.

To change the reprojection engine, Select Workspace Parameters > Spatial > Reprojection Engine. In the example shown, you can select Esri (but the selection here depends on your installed applications):