>>The problem is that there is not a clear definition of what constitutes a new column value. I would suggest at the source either delimiting with a different character (perhaps TAB or pipe | symbol). I don't use commas as the separator as this has the problem you are now having.
>>
>>Another suggestion is to use an XML formatted file for the data.
>
>Up until a few months ago, they were sending us the files in SDF format. Life was happy. Then they changed the format, and did not tell us. The application was failing, but not reporting the failure. It was only when started getting reports that the information in our database was out-of-date, that we noticed that the format had changed.
>I have put in a request with my bosses to talk to the source about the file format.

Hi Greg

definitely press to change the delimiter. | is always useful. Very few people use that in text.
Also Naomis suggestion about trapping rows with too many columns.