Hi dbach355

Seeing as how The number of fields is fixed, the number of fixed field lengths and variable field lengths varies - if all you need is another file with custom delimiters; you can achieve this with a one-liner:

perl -lawpe "$_=qq|$F[0]\\f$F[1]\\f$F[2]\\f$F[3]|" in.txt > out.txt

[download]

The offset within the @F array denotes each input field in your file; so offset 0 would represent ssn, offset 1 employee number and so on; simply craft your output line how you'd like it... See http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/08/09/commandline.html for additional command line options.

Cheers,
Shadowsong

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

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.