Hi,

Thre first thing to do is to go back to your boss and ask him for the file spec.

Any of those blanks might, on different lines, have a number or letter in it. Back in the distant past, when disk was expensive, to save space we would put 8 1 bit flags into a 1 byte column in a fixed-width file.

Once you have the file spec, you will know the format of the file and things will start to fall into place.

J.C.