SSIS Foreach Loop Container is frequently used to process files from specific folder. If the names of the files are not known beforehand then the usual way is to process all the files with specific extension. For e.g. all CSV files, or all XLSX files etc.
Untill recently I was under the impression that if you put “*.csv” in the Files textbox of the Collection tab on Foreach Loop editor, SSIS would look for only CSV files. However, this is not true. It appears that when SSIS looks for specfic file types in folder the search is a pattern based search. So if you put *.CSV, it will also process files with extensions like *.CSV_New or *.CSVOriginal.
To test this, I created a folder which contained following files with variations on extension CSV.
1. File1.CSV
2. File2.CSV_ARCHIEVED
3. File3.CSVARCHIEVED
4. File4.CSV.ARCHIEVED
5. File5.CSV.ARCHIEVED.201411232359
6. File6.CSV20141129
7. File7.A.CSV
8. File8.csv
9. File9.cSv
10. File10 i.e. no extension
I then created a simple SSIS package with Foreach Loop container which will iterate over these files and script task within it which will show message box with current filename. The Files textbox of the Collection tab on Foreach Loop editor contained *.CSV. On running the package, following files were picked by the container.
1. File1.CSV
2. File2.CSV_ARCHIEVED
3. File3.CSVARCHIEVED
4. File6.CSV20141129
5. File7.A.CSV
6. File8.csv
7. File9.cSv
Not a normal scenario to have files with various extensions in same folder but who knows. :)
If you are not sure which files would be processed by SSIS Foreach Loop container, the best thing to do would be navigate to the folder in Windows explorere and put the file extension in the search box. Those are the files which SSIS would pick up.
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