RE: manipulating data files

Easy with shell script cat src_file | while read LINE do F1=`echo $LINE | cut -c1-22` F2=`echo $LINE | cut -c23-34` F2=`echo $LINE | cut -c35-` echo "$F1|$F2|F3" | tee dest_file.unl done do a man on cut to get more options -----Original Message----- From: triggerfish2001@hotmail.com [mailto:triggerfish2001@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 19 October, 2000 1:23 AM To: informix-list@iiug.org Subject: manipulating data files Hi, I have just basic knowledge of perl. The task I need to accomplish is as follows: source file needs to be converted to target file. source file will be a fixed column length ASCII file of data. target file will be a PIPE ('|') seperated ASCII file of data. For eg:- source file will be as follows: John Smith 745-678-089011-10-1955 Robert IhaveAlongName345-567-453219-04-1967 Here the first 22 char is fixed length for name Starting from 23rd char next 12 char is for SSN Starting from 35th char next 10 char is for DOB. Now this needs to be changed to John Smith|745-678-0890|11-10-1955| Robert IhaveAlongName|345-567-4532|19-04-1967| The reason for this is that informix dbload or high performance loader needs a field delimiter. How can this be achieved in perl. thanks.