hi all...
i've been pulling my hair over this for the last 2 days and need some help.
here is the problem: i'm doing my own conversion of a database file from fixed width to a tab delimited file. and it works. except a little thing that it seems that happens randomly. let's say i have the number xxxxxxx439 immediately followed by three consecutive spaces which are at the end of a fixed width field. here the x's can be any digit. if i do insert a tab right after the three spaces (that's the end of the fixed width field) i actually get 2 tabs. and that screws up the count for the rest of the tab locations after that. what is weird is that i can have thousands of records (lines) that are coming out ok and one or two that are not. and it always happens on the same location in the fixed file and i alway get 2 tabs instead of one. the last 3 numbers are not necessarily always 439 but there is always three spaces after it and the length of the number is always the same. in the above example if i change any of the last three numbers the conversion works fine.
i checked for any gremlins or hidden characters but there is nothing like that...
i don;t have a logical explanation and i would very much like one. i'd appreciate any help on this dilemma.... hope somebody can help...
thanks.....
