I am new to Perl and am trying to determine if Perl is the right tool for the job. We currently are processing flat files we receive from vendors. The flat files have a series of about 7 or 8 fixed length record types. We are changing our processes, which means our flat file layout is changing. We may be adding fields, deleting fields, or changing the length of fields in the various record types. For the time being, we will need to continue processing the old file formats along with the new file formats until all vendors switch to the new format.
I was thinking of using Perl to read the file coming and determine if it is the old format or the new format. If it is the old format, we would reformat each record type, adding the new fields, deleting the obsolete fields, and changing field lengths where needed.
Does this seem like something for which Perl would be good to use?
Thanks,
Larry