For that particular example, tr ' ' '\n' < file ought to work:
tr ' ' '\n' < file
echo "ALB|1001|2012-04-15 ALB|1001|2012-04-14 ALB|1001|2012-04-16 ALB|1001|2012-04-17" | tr ' ' '\n'
xargs is a simple single program you can use to do this, as in:
$ echo "ALB|1001|2012-04-15 ALB|1001|2012-04-14 ALB|1001|2012-04-16 ALB|1001|2012-04-17"|xargs -d' ' -n1ALB|1001|2012-04-15ALB|1001|2012-04-14ALB|1001|2012-04-16ALB|1001|2012-04-17