Date:         Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:13:44 -0500
Reply-To:     RC Intrieri <RC-Intrieri@wiu.edu>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         RC Intrieri <RC-Intrieri@wiu.edu>
Subject:      Parsing Text
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Dear Listers,

I have a series of names that I am trying to effectively separate.  The
names include last, first and middle separated by spaces but the separators
could also be commas.  I have written a sample syntax program to do the job
but I wondered if anyone had any ideas about how to make it make it more
efficient and also to remove a variable "name5" before the syntax terminates.

Here is the code I used:
************************************************************************************
DATA LIST FIXED /name 1-25 (A).
BEGIN DATA
Doe John C
Poppins Mary D
Joel Billy N
Pan Peter Piper
Reindeer Rudolph R
END DATA.
LIST.

STRING name5 (A25).
STRING LNAME (A15).
STRING FNAME (A15).
STRING mi (A8).

*1. To delete the " " and everything to the right.
COMPUTE LNAME=SUBSTR(name,1,INDEX(name," ")-1).
LIST name lname.

*2. To delete the " " and everything to the LEFT.
COMPUTE name5=SUBSTR(name,INDEX(name," ")+1).
LIST name lname name5 .

*3. To delete the " " and everything to the right.
COMPUTE Fname=SUBSTR(name5,1,INDEX(name5," ")-1).
LIST lname fname name5.

*4. To delete the " " and everything to the LEFT.
COMPUTE mi=SUBSTR(name5,INDEX(name5," ")+1).
LIST name lname fname mi name5.

****************************************************************************************************
any ideas or help would be appreciated.

Bob Intrieri

Robert C. Intrieri, PhD         Office (309) 298-1336
Department of Psychology        Fax    (309) 298-2179
Western Illinois University     E-mail RC-Intrieri@wiu.edu
1 University Circle
Macomb IL 61455-1390