Another simple thing (I think). I've searched and can't find info on this. I need to import 28,000 names from db1. They are displayed as LAST, FIRST. I want them in two fields as they should be. I created a FULL NAME text field and I've imported them, but I don't want to re-type every name in the two fields. Surely a script can split them for me? I have another db2 with FIRST LAST full name entries. I don't want to import them until I've figure out how to group-apply a script to fix the first 28,000.

Hello:

1 suggestion:

You can make two calculation fields, NameFirst and NameLast:

NameFirst = RightWords(FULL NAME, 1)

NameLast = LeftWords(FULL NAME, 1)

This could give you problems if you need to create new records in the file, though. Also, if there is really a comma between last and first, this will show up. If so, I would probably wash it through Excel, eliminate the comma and separate the names while I'm at it.

Ken

If they are separated by a comma in the full name field:

Last Name = Left(Full Name, Position(Full Name, ",", 1, 1) - 1)

First Name = RightWords(Full Name, 1)

Of course this creates a problem if you have any ", Jr." or ", PhD." or anything like that, because the first comma may not be the one separating first from last names.

Thanks for your input! You're a great help on this forum. I appreciate all your suggestions.

That did the trick! The -1 stripped the comma. I don't care about PhD., etc. -- that should be in a title field anyway. I searched for 'jr' and manually will correct the three records which contain it. Thanks so much!

Check out my Handy Bits file in the Samples section of this forum. It has a couple of examples of parsing out names and addresses in the text Tab - plus some other goodies you might be interested in.

I've downloaded every example file here but haven't learned them all yet. Can you give me a file name to find it quickly? Does it happen to be RussCalcs from Oz? That was the db I plan to learn today. Thanks for your help kind sir!

Yes - RussCalcs from Oz is it...