Lets say that we have a field with imported names

Rich, Tony, Project, The

Zinman, David, / James Jodd

Vaughan, Stevie Ray, And Double Trouble

Mercier, Jaques, & Orchestre National D'

the maximum comma values is 5

I want to extract the words so the

"Rich, Tony, Project, The"

Extract to

Fieald A: Rich

Fieald B: Tony

Fieald C: Project

Fieald D: The

Fieald E:

and the

"Mercier, Jaques, & Orchestre National D'"

Extract to

Fieald A: Mercier

Fieald B: Jaque

Fieald C: & Orchestre National D

Fieald D:

Fieald E:

Please help I have to extract 8500 names of artists and bands

George Toubalis

Art Director

I would go with global field containing your comma separated list and write script to loop 8500 times creating new records and extracting each value from the list.

Someting like this:

SetVariable $_counter

Loop

NewRecord

SetField [FieldA; Extract values with help of Left(), Position(), MiddleValues() functions and $_counter value ]

SetField [FieldB; ... ]

.

.

SetField [FieldD; ...]

ExitLoop if $_counter > 8500

EndLoop

This should be starting point for you...

For information about each function read Help...

HTH DukeS

Hi George:

I had a thought, so I attached the example file below. It assumes (1) there are 8500 records and not 8500 values in a single field, and (2) the "comma-space" strings are consistent.

I created seven calculation fields. One to manipulate the imported data into return-separated values and the remaining six fields to capture the individual values from the first calculation field. (You mentioned up to 5 commas, so we would need 6 fields.)

If it works for what you need, and if you subsequently want to edit FieldsA-F, you can simply change those fields from calculations to standard text fields.

It's kind of rough, but I hope it gets the idea across....

CommaExtraction.fp7.zip

It works fine.... thanx

The exported names is from SQL system...

When they export the names, the order is

Hawkins, Coleman, & Johnny Hodges

Lemon Pipers, The

McCartney, Paul, and Friends

Brood, Herman, vs Armin van Buuren

Brubeck, Dave, Quartet, The

Dorsey, Tommy, & His Clambake Seven

there fields

possible are:

Last name (for the last name of an artist or a band)

Fist name (for the first name of an artist or the "the" of band)

Brubeck, Dave, Quartet, The

Here I am in TROUBLE

So I have to understund the porpose and the number of there fields.

I have to present the names right for a printed cataloque.