And a little shorter. :-)

>I second Tore's suggestion.
>
>We do this all the time. It is instantaneous on 50,000 segment files (the largest file I currently have to test with).
>
>>Hello all;
>>I wrote a prg that opens a text file, reads each line, parses the line and writes it into another file. the program works fine but it takes to long.
>>is there a method that i can accomplish this quicker.
>>A file that is about 250,000 lines takes almost 2 hours to process. Below is my prg and a few lines of the data from the input file.
>>the program creates a new line after every tilde.
>>
>>the parameter are the file handles created with a Fopen() and fcreate()
>>
>>PARAMETERS gnInFile, gnOutFile
>>LOCAL lnEnd,lnStrt,lnLoop,lcString
>>
>>lnEnd = FSEEK(gnInFile,0,2) && end of file
>>lnEndLoop = lnEnd + 1
>>lnStrt = FSEEK(gnInFile,0) && begining of file
>>lnLoop = 0
>>lcString = FGETS(gnInFile,64)
>>
>>FOR lnLoop = 1 TO lnEndLoop
>> * lnLoop = FSEEK(gnInFile,0,1)
>> WAIT WINDOW "Processing byte " + ALLTRIM(STR(lnLoop)) + " of " + ALLTRIM(STR(lnEnd)) NOWAIT
>>
>> IF AT('~',lcString,1) > 0
>> =FPUTS(gnOutFile,SUBSTR(lcString,1,AT('~',lcString,1)))
>> lcString = SUBSTR(lcString,AT('~',lcString,1)+1)
>> ELSE
>> lcString = lcString + FGETS(gnInFile,64)
>> ENDIF
>>
>> lnLoop = FSEEK(gnInFile,0,1)
>> IF lnLoop = lnEnd AND (EMPTY(lcString) OR ISBLANK(lcString))
>> EXIT
>> ENDIF
>>ENDFOR
>>
>>sample of character in the input file. We must create a new line at every Tilde. ~
>>
>>ISA*00* *00* *ZZ*341884003 *ZZ*113284753 *110215*1703*U*00401*104605543*0*P*>~GS*HC*341884003*113284753*20110215*1703*104605543*X*004010X098A1~ST*837*0001~BHT*0019*00*1046055430001*20110215*1127*CH~REF*87*004010X098A1~NM1*41*2*INTERACTIVE PAYER NETWORK*****46*341884003~PER*IC*EMDEON ADVANCED CLAIMING*TE*6159323021*EM*CLEPRODUCTIONTEAM@EMDEON.COM~NM1*40*2******46*113284753~HL*1**20*1~NM1*85*2*PRAKASHCHANDRA M. RAO, M.D., P*****XX*1326296039~N3*3130 GRAND CONCOURSE~N4*BRONX*NY*10458~REF*EI*010567880~REF*G5*0001~REF*G2*101439~HL*2*1*22*1~SBR*P**999999******ZZ~NM1*IL*1*FUENTES*JUANUTA****MI*16705189~N3*1770 BRUCKNER BLVD*13B~N4*BRONX*NY*10473~DMG*D8*19400518*F~NM1*PR*2*HERITAGE*****PI*11328~HL*3*2*23*0~PAT*21~NM1*QC*1*FUENTES*JUANITA
>>
>>Thank you in advance for your time and efforts.