Different between Fixed width and Ragged Right Files

 When we are working the flat files we are getting multiple types of likes CSV files (Comma separated (,), Pipe separated (|), table separated (\t) e.g.), Fixed width and Ragged Right Files.

Here we will see the difference between Fixed with and Ragged Right Files.

Fixed width File:

Fixed length records have fixed-length value for all fields and the \n presents the end of the line.

Read here: CR LF and CRLF in flat files

https://bageshkumarbagi-msbi.blogspot.com/2021/03/cr-lf-and-crlf-in-flat-files.html

See the example.

Below is the fixed-width file.

  

See the fixed length for the fields’ value.

 

Name: 0-20

Mobile: 21-35

Address: 36-60

 Ragged Right File:

 This file is similar to the fixed-width file only the difference is that this format file allows the last line to be variable length.

Some time we are not sure that the length of a column and we are extracting the data in the fixed file in this case we can put the column at the last and store the data in the fixed files.

See the below file. 

See the mapping 

Name: 0-20

Mobile: 21-35

Address: 36- variable Length

Hope this will help to understand the difference between the fixed width and Ragged Right files.

Thanks for reading!