Al final decidí hacerlo a la aventura. Copio el código que quizás a alguien le sea útil en algún futuro =)
$Fichero = file("fichero.txt"); //Open the file
foreach ($Fichero as $i => $line){ //For each row read.....
Código PHP:
Ver originalpreg_match_all('/;/', $line, $Results, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE
); //looking for ; contained in $line. This array is kept in $Results //print_r($Results);
foreach($Results as $position){
$position[0] = $position[2][1]+1; //This is the start position for the date
$position[1] = $position[3][1]; //This is the end position for the date
$position[2] = $position[8][1]+1; //This is the position in which the balls start
$position[3] = $position[9][1]; //This is the position in which the balls ends
$position[4] = $position[10][1]+1; //This is the position in which the reintegro start
break;
}
$size_date=$position[1]-$position[0]; //Max date size that we are going to substring
$size_balls=$position[3]-$position[2]; //Max balls size that we are going to substring
echo " ";
echo " ";
echo '</br>';