In the fixed length format, each data field starts and ends at a fixed position within the record regardless of the actual length of the field data. As with the comma-delimited format, each record is terminated with a carriage return/line feed <CRLF>. The order and size of the fields must be as specified by the format string.
Below is an example of a format string defining a fixed-length transaction record:
@ACCTLEDG(FIXED):ACCT(10),SKIP(1),DATE(-1.8),SKIP(1),REF(7),SKIP(1),DESC(30),SKIP(1),AMT(14),SKIP(1),XACCT(10),SKIP(1),REC(7)
Below are two sample transaction records that use it. Note that many browsers will not adjust properly for spaces, but in practice they would be spaced out to same field widths.
ADLER 05171992 111 Simple Transaction 100.00 BANK NEILSON 05181992 1112 Another Example 15.00 BANK
There are a few extra requirements associated with the fixed length format string:
Following the field name and in parentheses, you must specify the length of each field. In the case of the DATE field, you must define the date format as well. You do this by using a period (.) separator between the format and its length. For example, DATE(-1.8) denotes a DATE field that appears in format -1 and has a length of 8 characters.
When you have portions of a record that are to be ignored by RECORD IMPORT, such as characters that separate fields, you must include the special field label SKIP in your format string. RECORD IMPORT will skip over the specified number of character positions in the data record when it sees the SKIP field label.