Need help with a calculation to extract text.

[T.J.]

For example, say I have a field with the following text.

The quick brown fox jumped over the red dog.

I need to parse the information in this field into complete words and into 4 separate fields which are not longer than 12 characters.

So the result would be:

Field1 = The quick (9 characters)

Field2 = brown fox (9 characters)

Field3 = jumped over (11 characters)

Field4 = the red dog. (12 characters)

I need assistance with the calculations that I would need for each of the fields to extract this info.

The total length of the text will never exceed 48 characters but could be as short as 15 characters.

The reason for doing this is that I'm trying to export this information to another database that uses multivalues to display long text. The field length on

the other database doesn't allow for the length to be greater than 12 characters.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Ender]

What if the text doesn't break down into parts that fit, like:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

[T.J.]

You're correct. I would need the calculations to work for any length words and any length of text not to exceed 48 characters.

So if the text field contained:

I should have been more specific

field1 = I should (8 characters)

field2 = have been (9 characters)

field3 = more (4 characters)

field4 = specific (8 characters)

[Raybaudi]

So fields must be more than four...

And what if the word is longer than 12 chars ?

[Ender]

You're correct. I would need the calculations to work for any length words and any length of text not to exceed 48 characters.

I'm not sure what I'm correct about. I was asking what the rule should be for cases where the words don't fit the max 12 chars per grouping. It's still important. Do they get cropped or does the grouping wind up with more than 12 chars? The example:

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

does not fit:

Field1 = The quick (9 characters)

Field2 = brown fox (9 characters)

Field3 = jumped over (11 characters)

Field4 = the lazy dog. (13 characters)

[T.J.]

Given your example, the grouping would need to be cropped.

Actually, the character length of 12 is not really the limitation. I was just using it to try to simplify things. The limitation is 120 characters so I don't think there is a word in the English language that has more than 120 characters. I was just trying to see how the calculations for the fields might be written and then expand them from 12 to 120 characters.

[Ender]

Okay, let's start again.

If you want to break a string into substrings where the max length is 120 characters, what's desired: that the strings be balanced in length, or that they fill in from the first substring down. For example: if the string is only 200 characters, do you want to have as many words possible filling the first substring, then the remainder going to the second, or do you want the four substrings balanced as much as possible? Can only the last substring be cropped, or could cropping occur in any of the substrings?

[comment]

IIUC, the input is text and 4 length limits.

The output is 4 strings, each containing whole words only, and not exceeding its corresponding length limit.

Properly this should be a recursive calculation, but since poster's profile doesn't indicate an Advanced version, and since it's only 4 fields, I believe it could be hard-coded.

WordWrap4.fp7.zip

Edited April 16, 2007 by Guest
Removed List() function from the demo

[T.J.]

Thank you veteran, this is right on track.

However, for some reason the last word does not display. Any thoughts on how to get it to display?

I hope you can see the issue from the file I've uploaded.

WordWrap4noLastWord.zip

Edited April 17, 2007 by Guest

[comment]

Yes. The problem was the limits were evaluated as text instead of number. Thanks for catching the problem - hopefully fixed now.

Note that any punctuation marks at the beginning/end of lines will be dropped. That is a 'feature', not a bug.

WordWrap4.fp7.zip

[T.J.]

This is great! Thanks so much for your assistance.