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COBOL. My first COBOL program was on my first job read a (variable record
length) pipe delimited file, and wrote a fixed record length file,
UNSTRINGing from the original record to the target record. My second and
third programs went the other way, STRINGing together the same. I had
well-defined specs. Although this is a capital offense in some shops, I
found that not shuttling the records into and out of working storage made
for a considerable increase in efficiency.

The only 'gotcha' was the discovery that a value that couldn't possibly be
negative, the quantity of an inventory transfer, almost always was. Turns
out that in the wild, transfers between stores were keyed by receiving
store, as a negative quantity. So long as you can get specs from the
originating platform and be clear on how this is being used, COBOL should
serve you well.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Stefano [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 6:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Delimited Files

I have a pipe delimited file that I wish to convert to fix format.
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