Fix huge fixed width data quickly and easily with TextPipe Pro

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To fix fixed width files, you need to restrict changes to individual fields so you don't change data you didn't intend to.

ONLY TextPipe allows you to restrict changes to fixed width fields in massive files. Restrictions can also be applied to line ranges, column ranges, tab fields and much more. See white paper here

Easily handle fixed width files with TextPipe™ Pro, our multi-award winning, industrial strength text conversion, transformation, cleansing and extraction workbench-

• Convert CSV to tab-delimited, pipe-delimited (|) or semi-colon (;) delimited
• Convert CSV to XML (using the column headers as XML field names if required)
• Search and replace inside CSV fields (see white paper below)
• Add new CSV fields using the Add Left Margin or Add Right Margin filters
• Add a header line using the Add Header filter
• Move, copy or re-order CSV fields
• Convert between Unix, PC and Mainframe end-of-line formats
• Restrict changes to line ranges, column ranges, tab fields and much more (see white paper here)
• Convert between Mainframe EBCDIC and PC/Unix ASCII representations (see white paper here)
• Remove multiple white space
• Remove CSV fields
• Remove an existing header line
• Remove or extract lines matching a pattern or a code
• Split files that might be too large for a third party application to handle
• Merge multiple CSV files together

And...TextPipe handles multi-Gigabyte files with ease, and can be automated or scripted for overnight processing. Download now -->

 

TextPipe also has a huge range of filters for code page conversions, conversions to/from Unicode, restricting changes to a given area, and you can even write custom filters in VBScript or JScript.

 

Like us...you'll find yourself using TextPipe again and again for all kinds of text-processing tasks.

How to Convert from Fixed Width to CSV

Using the Filters\Wizards\Fixed width to delimited wizard, you can easily tell TextPipe the name and length of each field, and can even paste it in from another system.

The format is <field name><space><length of column>

e.g.

Record_Type_P 2 Acct_No_Prefix 2 AcctNo 12 Patient_Status 3 Admit_Dt 8 ABS_Status_Date 8 Patient_Name 30 Pt_Addr_1 30

1. Firstly, open TextPipe and drag and drop your file
2. Use Filters\Wizards\Fixed width to delimited wizard
3. Paste in, or type your column specifications
4. Click the Output filter at the bottom of the filter tree, and ensure the output file has a new extension, name or location.
5. Click [Go] or press [F9].

How to Convert from CSV to Fixed Width

The general approach is to first ensure that each CSV field has the desired width, and then remove the CSV text (commas and quotes) at the end

1. Firstly, open TextPipe and drag and drop your file
2. Add a Filters\Restrict\Delimited fields (CSV, Tab, Pipe, etc)
3. Set the filter to
   1. Comma (.csv) mode
   2. Select option 2 - and set to '1 Comma-delimited field starting at field 1
   3. Check the boxes - Subfilter each field individually, Exclude delimiter from the subfiltered text, Exclude quotes (if present) from subfiltered text
4. Add a Filters\Add\Pad to width filter, and drag it inside the Delimited fields (CSV, Tab, Pipe, etc)
5. Set the Pad to width filter to the width of field 1.
   
   That completes the first field. For additional fields, select the Delimited fields (CSV, Tab, Pipe, etc) filter, and then click [ x2 ] in the toolbar to copy it. Remember to update the field you are restricting to, and the field width. If a number of fields have the same width, you can specify a range in the Delimited fields (CSV, Tab, Pipe, etc) filter.
    
6. After the last filter, add a Filters\Replace\Find EasyPattern.
7. Set the Find EasyPattern search text to
   
       [ (lineStart, doubleQuote) or (doubleQuote, comma, doubleQuote) or ( doubleQuote, lineEnd ) ]
   
   , then set the replace text to blank.
    
8. Click the Output filter at the bottom of the filter tree, and ensure the output file has a new extension, name or location.
9. Click [Go] or press [F9].

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