Nico Rozendal <Nico.Rozendaal@NP.UNIMAAS.NL> wrote: >I have a (text) file with the following format: > >123420010110010010101 (and so on this way => ) >234531111101100101010 >678940000010010111010 >340151010101110101010 >and so on... > >Now let's say the first four characters are a PIN number, >the following two characters the subject's age, and so on. >How can I read such a file split in (fixed) columns ? >I would like to insert tabs at the end of each field, creating >a tab-delimited text file. See the Llama book Ch. 17 under Fixed-length Random Access Databases. Try something like this: my ($pin, $age) = unpack ("A4 A2", <>); print ($pin, "\t", $age, "\n"); If you just want to insert tabs (and not process the data) then try: print (join ("\t", unpack ("A4 A2", <>)), "\n"); >Thanks for your help, and a happy new year ! A happy new year to everyone else, too! Michael Hoffman <grouse@eden.com>