[SGVLUG] Help with file format

[James Neff]

Greetings,

We received a file from a customer and I'm having trouble determine what 
the character set is.

When I run the "file" utility:

[root at appserver2 06-11-28]# file customer-file.txt
customer-file.txt: MPEG ADTS, layer I, v1,  96 kBits, 44.1 kHz, Stereo


When I run "less"  it thinks its a binary file and I see garbage if I 
choose to look at it anyway.

When I run "vi" I can read the file just fine from start to finish but 
at the bottom of the terminal is:

"customer-file.txt" [converted][dos] 47830L, 9943298C

The line count is correct.

When I run "more" I can read the file just fine from start to finish.

When I try to use "split", the first 15103 lines look ok, but after that 
everything looks like garbage, as if its binary.

Before I can go back to our customer and ask them for a proper file, I 
need to at least tell them what is wrong with this file (other than 
saying something is wrong with it).

What started this problem was when we tried to import this into our MS 
SQL database using DTS.  At line 15103 the DTS reported an error saying 
there were extra columns in that record.  When we first opened DTS it 
reported the file is in UNICODE.   How would I go about verifying that?

So how do I determine what exactly is wrong with this?  Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
James