in reply to Manipulating an encrypted file

I guess your encryption is producing newline characters in the crypted data and your IFS ($/) is set to the default of newline. you will have to sysread a fixed length if your records are fixed length. If you can not make them fixed length you will have to use a new IFS which can never appear in your crypt text, or alter your crypt so it can not generate the IFS

Cheers,
R.