Processing fixed-length ASCII files with CSV Input step

[uwegeercken]

Problem description

A fixed-length ascii file has fields at defined positions and the space between fields is filled with space characters up to a defined end position. There is no separator like in CSV files. It is possible that between two adjacent fields there is NO space when the first field extends to it's end position.

Tweakstreet today allows to select from a drop down from several single character separators for files that use a separator. If one wants to process a fixed-length file one can select a separator character that is NOT existing in the file but this is not reliable. Anyway doing so (if it works), one gets the complete row as a single field (field number 0).

Preferred solution

The step could be enhanced to provide an entry of "fixed-length" under the "separator" drop down. if this is selected, pressing the Auto-detect fields button, the step makes an attempt of finding the start and end position and provides the fields. The user can then change the start and end positions if required or the user can add additional field in the fields where not splited correctly (because the end of one field is next to the following field).

Alternatives

Provide a separate step with enhanced and dedicated functionality for fixed-length files to help the user define the positions of the fields (after an attempt was made by the program).