At 12:12 PM 9/26/2008, Cheryl Scott wrote:
>I need to split several thousand course names into two parts: prefix
>and course number. The prefix is always first in the name and is
>comprised of alpha characters only. The course number is second in
>the name and is mostly numeric although may contain an alpha
>trailing character. Is there a way to efficiently break the name
>into the 2 pieces that I need, perhaps based on the first occurrence
>of a number?
Precisely this problem was recently posed(1) and solved(2). The
following is from the cited solution, with variable names changed to
match yours. It hasn't been tested with the name changes.
STRING prefix number (A12).
COMPUTE #FirstDig = INDEX(name,'0123456789',1).
DO IF #FirstDig GT 0.
. COMPUTE prefix = SUBSTR(name,1,#FirstDig-1).
. COMPUTE number = SUBSTR(name, #FirstDig).
ELSE.
. COMPUTE prefix = name.
. COMPUTE number = '' /* Not really necessary */.
END IF.
................................
(1) Inquiry:
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:03:01 -0700
From: Keval Khichadia <
[hidden email]>
Subject: substring
To:
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Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:58:50 -0700
(2) Solution:
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:18:21 -0400
From: Richard Ristow <
[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: substring
To:
[hidden email]
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