yeah, the source ftp site has a DB schema description right at the top level. You could set up a table to import data into. Then export it out in whatever forma

yeah, the source ftp site has a DB schema description right at the top level. You could set up a table to import data into. Then export it out in whatever format you want, or query it however. If the schema changes from one month to another it would be far easier to just update the DB table schema for the next import than change parsing code. Everything can be solved with code, but not everything should be. Interesting as a coding exercise and perhaps that's the point of the article. Not the way I'd do it if I wanted a stable process for consuming the data regularly.