++ the above, but a stray concern intrudes: what if OP is talking about "column number" in the sense widely used by folk looking at 
xxx    yyyyy    zzzz      111
aaa    bbbb     ccccc             222

[download]
who declare, not without justification, that the "y"s and "b"s appear in column two; the numerals "1" in column 4 and the numbers "2" in column 5.

rsriram... this is a case where more precise language, or a sample of the dataset would help.

and, if this is indeed a comma or tab delimited text file, why ...count the tabs!

In reply to Re: Displaying the column number when reading a file by ww
in thread Displaying the column number when reading a file by rsriram

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