Tell me about it! Provided by an external body unfortunately so we have no say in their layout. SQL tables allow 1024 columns so I checked that part out. Checked...

I've attached the file to illustrate it better.

That's right, or rather 992 "logical" columns i.e. in each record of the flat file there's 992 fields separated by 991 pipes if that makes sense!

Thanks both for the suggestions. Having tested with values in the split function I had it produced the values I was expecting. The key was the varchar v char data...

Thanks Peter. Will try both approaches out.

Well there's disappointing! My first ever post on here and no replies! Sob!