extracting data from a txt file

This is a ve开发者_如何转开发ry elementary question. I have a very large txt file and I would like to extract data from it and I don't know where to begin. Can someone briefly outline what software tool(s) are required to perform this task.

Is data in the text file well formatted?

If the data is well formatted as several columns, you can import the text file into SQL Server and do SQL query in the generated database table.

If don't know how to do that in SQL Server please let me know, I will continue to show you how to do that.

If your data is not well formatted in the text file or not in several columns, please also let know, and show me what does the data look like. Then I am glad to discuss it with you.