>>>I am working on a project to create an app which consistently pulls data from an ascii file. The file is standard in terms of fields, but they do not line up into clean columns. Therefore, I need to be able to pull 20 lines in format x, or into table x, and the next 10 in format y, or into table y. What syntax would I use to switch from one format to another when appending from one sdf ??
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>>can you get this data delimited? then you don't have to worry about the format...
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>Unfortunately no, it is not possible to get the data in a delimited format. It is being obtained through a capture of a unix report.

is the problem that the field structure and order (on the report) is not constant?