Veka wrote:
I've tried to find information on this and also tried different csv
file editors without luck.

My problem is how can I break a column with a date 01122006 into three
new columns DAY 01 MNTH 12 YEAR 2006?

I'd use excels left() and right() formulas to do it in excel, but my
CSV files are too large for excel and I'd need to do the operation on
several files.

A good job for perl. If you only have that single column, you ca do it
with this single line of perl script:

perl -pe 's/(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{4})/DAY $1 MNTH $2 YEAR $3/'

If you have more columns, it will be nessecary to make sure that they
aren't matched by the above regular expression. You can post the columns
here and I can return the snipplet that will do the job.

Regards,

Michael.

Veka wrote:
Hi Michael,

It would be great to get a fix on this. I have a bunch of CSV files in
a folder. They all have column headings like:

FIRSTNAMELASTNAMEPRDUCTEMAILPERIDINFINDICATR_VALUE
ADAMAU11111100AU@email.se200601ALAS_IN10.000000

I'd need the fifth column i.e. PERID to be created into two new
columns YEAR and MNTH.

I haven't used perl, but if I understand it correctly I just need to
download something like activeperl and insert the code and then it'll
be an executable. I'm much more familiar with say visualbasic.

Yes. Just download ActivePerl and install it. a command prompt and
paste this code on one line:

perl -ane '$F[4] =~ s/(\d{4})(\d{2})/$1 $2/; print join("\t", @F), "\n"'
<myoldfile.csv >mynewfile.csv

Remember to be careful that it is written exactly as above.

You could also put it in a file with the extension pl, which should make
it executable on Windows. In that case, the script becomes

#!/usr/bin/perl -ane
$F[4] =~ s/(\d{4})(\d{2})/$1 $2/;
print join("\t", @F), "\n";

Just run it from the command prompt like this:

myscript.pl <myoldfile.csv >mynewfile.csv

Good luck.

Regards,

Michael.

Veka wrote:
Thanks a lot. Too a while to figure how to run perl programs. I run the
program. It creates a new file the size of 0kb and gives the following
error message:Can't emulate -e on #! line at
c:\perl\perlscripts\file.csv

Yes. Replace

#!/usr/binPerl -ane

With

#!/usr/binPerl -an

(In other words, jst delete the "e".)

Regards,

Michael.