Checking and customizing the schema of your positional file | Talend Studio Help
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Checking and customizing the schema of your positional file

Last updated: 8/27/2026

About this task

Step 4 shows the end schema generated. Note that any character which could be misinterpreted by the program is replaced by neutral characters. Underscores replace asterisks, for example.

File - Step 4 of 4 dialog box.

Procedure

  1. Rename the schema (by default, metadata) and edit the schema columns as needed.
    Information noteWarning: Avoid using any Java reserved keyword as a schema column name.
    Make sure the data type in the Type column is correctly defined.
    For more information regarding Java data types, including date pattern, see Java API Specification.
    Below are the commonly used Talend data types:

    • Object: a generic Talend data type that allows processing data without regard to its content, for example, a data file not otherwise supported can be processed with a tFileInputRaw component by specifying that it has a data type of Object.

    • List: a space-separated list of primitive type elements in an XML Schema definition, defined using the xsd:list element.

    • Dynamic: a data type that can be set for a single column at the end of a schema to allow processing fields as VARCHAR(100) columns named either as ‘Column<X>’ or, if the input includes a header, from the column names appearing in the header. For more information, see Dynamic schema.

    • Document: a data type that allows processing an entire XML document without regarding to its content.

  2. To generate the Positional File schema again, click the Guess button. Note that, however, any edits to the schema might be lost after "guessing" the file-based schema.
  3. When done, click Finish to close the wizard.

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