[ic] Purpose of products.txt

[Jean-Pierre Parent]

> I'm not too sure about this, but why is there a products.txt file in
> addition to the data in the database? Is it not more efficient to read
> it off one or the other, rather than having to sync and keep both the
> same?

I'm fairly new but here's what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong)

The products.txt file is simply a source to import the data from...if you
want you can set the NoImport directive in your catalog.cfg so that you can
use another table (already created) for the products. Beware that you'll
need description, sku and price fields unless you change them in the
catalog.cfg file.

It also helps to build the database on the fly by just loading all the
fields in it either with the defaults or the ones defined by COLUMN_DEFs.

> I refer to this because I just imported some data I entered using
> Excel and it sure works out great, but when I tried to access some
> fields, it doesn't happen.

I'm not quite following you there...

Hope it helps...

Jean-Pierre Parent