>>Instead of parsing it based on position, couldn't you use string.split (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131450.aspx) to extract the elements you need?
>
>Not really, FTP servers will sometimes only put the Month Day Hour when this is in the same year and Month Day Year when this is another year. Also, Unix and Windows format differs. So, I have to lookup at the string level and parse against the conditions that I need to support.
>
>But, thanks for the suggestion

In that case, maybe Regex can be of help - use named Groups

Example

After the day, I capture either a time or a year

		static void Main(string[] args)
		{
			string[] lines =
			{	@"-rw-rw-rw-   1 user     group        1402 Dec 30  2005 AmazonCA.gif",
				@"-rwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group            4480 Feb 15  2:25 8A17T2T1.txt"
			};

			string pattern = @"^(?<Permissions>\S+)\s+(?<Links>\d+)\s+(?<User>\w+)\s+(?<Group>\w+)\s+(?<FileSize>\d+)\s+(?<Month>\w+)\s+(?<Day>\d+)\s+((?<Year>\d{4})|(?<Time>\d+:\d+(:\d+)?))\s+(?<FileName>\S+)$";



			foreach (string line in lines)
			{
				Match m = Regex.Match(line, pattern);

				if (m.Success)
				{
					Console.WriteLine("Month {0}", m.Groups["Month"]);
					Console.WriteLine("Day {0}", m.Groups["Day"]);
					Console.WriteLine("Year {0}", m.Groups["Year"]);
					Console.WriteLine("Time {0}", m.Groups["Time"]);
					Console.WriteLine("FileName {0}", m.Groups["FileName"]);
				}
				else
					Console.WriteLine("No match");

			}


			Console.ReadLine();
			return;
				

		}