This is similar to GrandFather's approach moving along the line field by field a time but uses the @fieldNames array and a counter to determine whether we have an actual field or the field width of the next field.

use strict;
use warnings;

use feature qw{ say };

open my $dataFH, q{<}, \ <<__EOF__ or die qq{open: < HEREDOC: $!\n};
123445678 45612 11 Steve Smith 11012015 16 1001 Main Street GA 7 Atlan
+ta 30553
234256653 76467 8 Joe Blow 06072014 11 83 Low Road CO 6 Denver 12345
239879583 62098 10 Andy Pandy 03112012 13 10 The Strand NJ 13 Atlantic
+ City 16345
__EOF__

my @fieldNames = qw{
   ssn empNo ncEmpName
   empName hireDate ncAddr
   addr state ncCity city zip
   };

while ( <$dataFH> )
{
    chomp;
    my $fieldCt = 0;
    my @fields;
    while ( length )
    {
        s{^\s*}{};
        my $next = $1 if s{(\S+)}{};
        if ( $fieldNames[ $fieldCt ] =~ m{^nc} )
        {
            s{^\s*}{};
            push @fields, substr $_, 0, $next, q{};
            $fieldCt ++;
        }
        else
        {
            push @fields, $next;
        }
        $fieldCt ++;
    }
    say join q{|}, @fields;
}

[download]

The output.

123445678|45612|Steve Smith|11012015|1001 Main Street|GA|Atlanta|30553
234256653|76467|Joe Blow|06072014|83 Low Road|CO|Denver|12345
239879583|62098|Andy Pandy|03112012|10 The Strand|NJ|Atlantic City|163
+45

[download]

I hope this is of interest.

Cheers,

JohnGG

In reply to Re: How to process variable length fields in delimited file. by johngg
in thread How to process variable length fields in delimited file. by dbach355

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