It's Notepad. They are sent to me as a .dat or .txt file.
I'm probably not making myself as clear as possible. Each record is 101
bytes long. If there are 4 segments of 101 byte records (of related data),
and the field locations are different for each 101 'chunk', Excel's Wizard
will parse the first line fine. Of course, the fields on the 2nd (+3rd+4th)
line are in different positions so they don't parse correctly. (It just so
happens that a single piece of data will span two lines but that's not my
real problem).
Yes, I could manually cut/paste line 2, 3, and 4 together (after 1) then use
the wizard, but that's time consuming. I want to build a template of
parameters for each file structure, once.
I appreciate your time and input.
"Doug Kanter" wrote:
OK - I receive files like this all day long from various IBM mainframes. I'm
not doubting that what you see is some records which seem to occupy two
lines. My question is this: What are you viewing the text file with when you
see two lines in some records? Which text editor/viewer? I'm asking because
I've ONLY seen this happen when my text editor made things look this way. As
soon as I fixed what the editor was doing wrong, everything reverted to one
line per record.
So, how are you viewing them?
"danmcgov" wrote in message
...
Ultimately, they are sourced from an IBM Mainframe. Below is another
example
(Notepad). Generally, the first byte of each record identifies that
segment
(4 segments here). I'm looking for something that will allow me to plug
in
the parameters (For example; 'Last Name' found in record 2, position
12-35,
'Filler' in record 2 36-37..etc) and easily see the data in columns.
That's
easy enough when the records are strung out in one long string but not so
easy with mult-line records.
1010130QXY0000071
JNLXXXXXX05060705060720000000000000+00001602000+0D ESCRIPTION LINE1
2DESCRIPTION LINE2 DESCRIPTION LINE3 DESCRIPTION LINE4 DESCRIPTION
LINE5 DESCRIPTION LINE6
3DESCRIPTION LINE7 DESCRIPTION LINE8 DESCRIPTION LINE9 000000
000000000+
40000000+ XXXXXROE
AGENCY
9QXY00
"Doug Kanter" wrote:
"danmcgov" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for a way in Excel (even if I need to purchase an add-on)
to
import .txt files that have fixed record lengths (generally 101 bytes)
but
have multi-line records. The field lengths are variable and can
sometimes
carry into the next record. Something like this:
Because you said they "sometimes carry into the next record", I wonder
why
ALL of them don't. You didn't mention where the files originated (what
software made them, in other words). Database report generators are
pretty
orderly things, and generally do what they're told to. If they're told to
put each record on two lines, they'll do it all the time, not just some
of
the time. If told to put them on one line, then that's what they do,
unless
something fishy's going on.
So.....some questions:
1) Have you opened one of these text files in a straight text editor, and
checked to be absolutely sure that word wrap isn't turned on? By text
editor, I mean Notepad, or if the file's too large for Notepad, then
something like Wordpad or NoteTab (available for free at
www.download.com)?
2) Do you have any control over how the original text files are created?
If
not, can you communicate with the person who's creating them and find out
what software they originate with?