Can't get my non-programmer's mind around this one:

How do I parse out the first and last names from a 32-character field formatted as [last_name, first_name] so that they can be re-assembled for a mail-merge?

Thanks!

Try this
LAST_NAME/A30 = GETTOK(NAME, 30, -1, ',', 30, LAST_NAME);

This will extract the last name. This assumes ',' as the delimiter.

Vipul

Ok. So I ran it as,

FIRST_NAME/A30 = GETTOK(STU_NAME, 30, -1, ',', 30, FIRST_NAME);

which works fine to get most of the first names. But it turns out that there are some other variations in the field:

Smith, John (ok)
Smith, John J. (ok)
Smith, John James (ok)
Smith, John James, JR. (not ok)
Smith, John James, II (not ok)

I hadn't realized that there were two commas in some of the names. Any suggestions?

Just quickly-
Use only first two tokens and discard the others. i will give you the code later...have to go.

Fudd, you might try this. It puts everything before the first comma in LASTNAME and put everything after the first comma in RESTOFNAME. NAME is the REALFIELD in the Database.

DEFINE FILE xxxxx
SPACEPOS/I2 = POSIT(NAME, 32, ',' , 1, SPACEPOS);
LASTNAME/A32 = SUBSTR(32, NAME, 1, SPACEPOS -1, SPACEPOS -1, LASTNAME);
RESTOFNAME/A32 = SUBSTR(32, NAME, SPACEPOS +1, 32, 32 - SPACEPOS -1, RESTOFNAME);
END

TABLE FILE xxxxx
PRINT
SPACEPOS
LASTNAME
RESTOFNAME
END

Thanks. I tried your suggestion and it yielded some odd results with the last name. It appends portions of the previous record's last name to the current record. I haven't tried to tinker with it yet.

I might be asking for too much from a single approach. So far, the code below works relatively well. It separates out the the first name from the middle name or middle initial and then, when present, hangs the 'JR.' or 'III' suffix on the end. Hyphenated names, either first or last, come out ok. It falls apart though when there are compound last names without the hyphen like 'Smith Jones, John Edward'. Might have to separate those out first and bring them back in later.


DEFINE FILE HOLD1
SUFF/A4 = GETTOK(STU_NAME, 32, +3, ',', 32, SUFF) ;
F_NAME/A18 = GETTOK(STU_NAME, 30, +2, ' ', 30, F_NAME) ;
L_NAME/A30 = GETTOK(STU_NAME, 30, +1, ',', 30, L_NAME) ;
END
-*
TABLE FILE HOLD1
PRINT F_NAME L_NAME SUFF
END