FlatFile import with multiple formats to single table

Question

I need to import a Flatfile which can have varying number of columns eg row1 7 x cols, row2 15 x columns, row3 12 x columns.
The file needs to be added to a single table.
Any thoughts on best way to approach this. 

Answer 1

What version of SSIS are you using? If you're using 2012 or later, you can most likely do this in the data flow without scripting.
You'll configure your flat file source with the maximum number of columns you'll expect in any data row, and each column's data type would need to be configured to accommodate the largest/widest value expected in any row for that column. In SSIS 2012 or
2014, the flat file source will interpret any missing columns as NULLs. Then just load the output of the flat file source to your destination table with the appropriate mappings. Any missing values will be NULL.
The behavior was different in SSIS 2005 and 2008. If you had fewer than expected columns in any row, the flat file source would continue to read data from the file until it got all of the columns it expected - even if that meant reading data from the next
line of text. For those versions, scripting the source was the easier solution.
Tim Mitchell | TimMitchell.net | @tim_mitchell