data parsing

[Gnanasekaran Thoppae]

Hi,

I have some data in a file 'test', which contains:

Joe|25|30|49|40|
|28|39|71||
|30|29|||
Malcolm|43|60|56||
|28|37|||
Amy||70|45||
|40|30||40
|40||30||

This is basically a multi line (record) values that belong
to the first line that starts with a filled field.

This is part belongs to joe 'Joe'

Joe|25|30|49|40|
|28|39|71||
|30|29|||

This to 'Malcolm'
Malcolm|43|60|56||
|28|37|||

and the rest to Amy.

I want to parse this data and format it in this way:

Joe|25;28;30|30;39;29|49;71|40|
Malcolm|43;28|60;37|56||
Amy|40;40|70;30|45;;30|;40;|

Basically speaking, I am trying to cluster multi record
data into one field, each seperated by a delimiter ';' and
if the field is empty, an empty ; will enable later on to
decode the field as empty field ''.

Thanks.

-gnana