>I have a mainframe file that has not been normalized. It contains data in a horizontal fashion instead of vertically. for example:
>
>400*2*CREDIT VOUCHER*208*$42,190.89*477*$69,806.49*108*$17,490.11*231*$39,007.35
>

This looks suspiciously like data from an ANSI X.12 document; you might want to check if this is the case; there are ANSI standard formats for several hundred standard business documents used extensively for B2B EDI transactions.