Dave wrote:
> So I'm importing a file into a temp table using DBLoad.
>
> This file though does not have the same format as the table it will
> move into. It needs to be "Last, First M" but within the file it is
> "First M Last". Not all people have middle initial as well, and if they
> don't have a middle initial there are 2 spaces in between.
>
> The file is just a list of names,address,phone,etc.
>
> My boss and I decided to load it into the temp table and figure out how
> to seperate the First, Last, and Middle initial into sepearate fields
> and then move it into the appropriate table using an Informer but we're
> not experienced with String parsing.
>
> Anyone got any tips? I can't imagine this is a new problem, but we've
> never dealt with it. Thanks much.

Dbload can do it for you. See the syntax for decoding a fixed format file
in the Migration Guide. It's something like:

FILE my_input
(last 1-20,
mi 22,
first 24-40 );

If the file is variable length, use UNIX tools to pad it out:

awk '\
{
if (NF == 3) { printf "%20s %1s %20s\n", $1, $2, $3; }
else { printf "%20s %20s\n", $1, $2; }
}

Or to convert it to delimited format:

awk '\
{
if (NF == 3) { printf "%s|%s|%20s|\n", $1, $2, $3; }
else { printf "%s||%s|\n", $1, $2; }
}

More elegant solutions using Perl I'm sure, but it takes me a minute or two
longer to write in Perl, so...

Art S. Kagel