Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi all,
I'm looking for some tips on an ideal method of parsing a huge fixed length flat file (~500gb) into a delimited text file. We have to do this because our data warehouse platform only accepts delimited file loads. In the past, we've done this with SAS (only on smaller ~40GB files) by importing into a SAS dataset using an input statement then dumping to a tab delimited text file using a simple proc export. I want to make this process more efficient and get SAS out of the process. I know this can all be done with Perl, Python, Java, etc. but I don't have any experience w/ those tools. Any suggestions or thoughts would be much appreciated.

One other item I forgot to mention is that the file contains 5 different file layouts which is identified by the first 2 bytes of the row (each row is 276 bytes wide). I provided a piece of my SAS code that shows 2 of the layouts. Thanks in advance.

SAS Code snippet:

Code:

 
INFILE MYFILE LRECL=276TRUNCOVER;
INPUT @1 RECTYPE $CHAR2. @;
SELECT (RECTYPE);
WHEN('CO') DO; 
INPUT
@ 16 a $6.
@ 22 b $1.
@ 23 c $7.
@ 30 d $6.
@ 36 e $2.
@ 38 f $6.
@ 44 g $1.
@ 45 h $38.
@263 x $14.;
OUTPUT CO_DATA;
END;
WHEN('HD') DO; 
INPUT
@ 16 aa $6.
@ 22 bb $2.
@ 24 cc $2.
@263 x $14.;
OUTPUT HD_DATA;
END;

I doubt you'll receive any useful help because of the dearth of information. You want help processing a file that contains 5 types of records. You should provide at least one sample of each type from the file to be processed. You should also provide, for each type, the desired output. If it's too wide and it breaks the forum's layout, attach them in a small text file.

From what the info you gave, even someone who is familiar with SAS has no clue about three of the format types.

I'm willing to help if i can, but I don't have enough information.

Regards,
Alister