ADDCOMMA utility 1994
FreeWare by Frank Font (72440,2354)

Legal Speak: No implied warranties of usability or reliability ... etc.  
             Works fine for me though.

Subset of this help appears when you type ADDCOMMA with no params.

I created this program to convert data files output by mainframes in
fixed column format to a delimited format.  Excel can import CSV
files (Comma Separated Values) but not fixed column format files.

Syntax:
   addcomma <layout> <data> [<output> [<dchar>]]  
Where...
   <layout> ::= File with field lengths on each line.
   <data>   ::= File of fixed length field records.
   <output> ::= Delimited file to produce. (Screen is default.)
   <dchar>  ::= ASCII value of character to use as delimiter.
                (Comma is default.)

Example case:
        
1)      You have the following file with field 1 from pos 1 to 9, field
        2 from pos 10 to 13 and field 3 from 14 to 19.  The file is called
        MAINSTUF.ASC and you want to CSV it so that Excel (or whatever 
        else) can read it in.  (Note: first field is 9 chars long, second
        is 4 chars long and third is 6 chars long.)
             
             12345    9876  543.89
             32423    2343   65.98
             876      9890   99.60

2)      Create the following layout file in your ASCII editor (eg. EDIT)
        and call it MAINSTUF.LAY

        9
        4
        6

3)      Create the CSV file by typing the following at the command line.
        (In this example, the CSV file will be called MAINSTUF.CSV.)

        ADDCOMMA MAINSTUF.LAY MAINSTUF.ASC MAINSTUF.CSV

4)      The resulting file called MAINSTUF.CSV would look as follows:

        12345,9876,543.89
        32423,2343,65.98
        876,9890,99.60

If you wanted to create a TAB delimited file instead, just use the forth
parameter.  Doing so on the example above would result in the following
command instead.

        ADDCOMMA MAINSTUF.LAY MAINSTUF.ASC MAINSTUF.TAB 9

The output file in the above example would be MAINSTUF.TAB and have tabs
instead of commas.

