diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c74f12b..cfc7b33 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ You can:
 
 - register a pre flight check to determine whether or not a row has to be parsed
 - register a callback to handle each line
-- register a chopping map which transforms each row into an assiciative array
+- register a chopping map which transforms each row into an associative array
 
 
 ## Usage ##
@@ -30,12 +30,16 @@ The working example can be found in `example/parsing.php`.
 
     //Set the chopping map (aka where to extract the fields)
     $parser->setChoppingMap(array(
-      array('field_name' => 'id', 'start' => 0, 'length' => 2),
+      array('field_name' => 'id', 'field_type' => 'int', 'start' => 0, 'length' => 2),
       array('field_name' => 'name', 'start' => 2, 'length' => 5),
       array('field_name' => 'team', 'start' => 7, 'length' => 5),
     ));
 
-``field_name`` and ``length`` are required and ``start`` is an optional parameter. If ``start`` is omitted, it will be set to the ``start`` plus ``length`` value of the previous map entry.
+``field_name`` and ``length`` are required; ``start`` and ``field_type`` are optional parameters.
+If ``start`` is omitted, it will be set to the ``start`` plus ``length`` value of the previous map entry.
+
+``field_type`` can currently be one of three values: `string`, `int` or `float`.
+`string` is the default, and nothing extra is done. Otherwise, the specified value is casted to `(int)` or `(float)` respectively.
 
     //Set the absolute path to the file
     $parser->setFilePath(__DIR__ . '/example.dat');
diff --git a/library/Fanatique/Parser/FixedLengthFileParser.php b/library/Fanatique/Parser/FixedLengthFileParser.php
index 738d981..486c875 100644
--- a/library/Fanatique/Parser/FixedLengthFileParser.php
+++ b/library/Fanatique/Parser/FixedLengthFileParser.php
@@ -191,6 +191,23 @@ private function parseLine($buffer)
                     $this->choppingMap[$i]['length']);
             $currentLine[$name] = trim($currentLine[$name]);
 
+            if(isset($this->choppingMap[$i]['field_type'])) {
+                switch($this->choppingMap[$i]['field_type']) {
+                    case 'int':
+                        $currentLine[$name] = (int)$currentLine[$name];
+                    break;
+
+                    case 'float':
+                        $currentLine[$name] = (float)$currentLine[$name];
+                    break;
+
+                    case 'string':
+                    default:
+                        // no-op (by default each value is processed as a string)
+                    break;
+                }
+            }
+
         }
 
         //Store callback as local variable (as PHP does not recognize closures as class members)