From: Andrew Timberlake <andrew@...>
Date: 2009-04-15T12:08:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Parsing Fixed Width File

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Nick da G <nick.gorbikoff@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, all.
> Does anyone know of a good  or any for that matter library (gem) to
> parse fixed width files?
>
> I've looked into active-warehouse - but it looks like it's for rails
> only and docs are a bit underdeveloped for it.
>
> Any ideas anyone?
> --

It's pretty simple so I'm not sure that a library is needed

fields = [5,12,5,2,20] #<- the size of each field
field_pattern = "A#{fields.join('A')}"
File.foreach(filename) do |line|
  row = line.unpack(field_pattern)
  ... #use row[0] etc for each field
end

Andrew Timberlake
http://ramblingsonrails.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" - Mark Twain