filePro tip -- edits

[Brian K. White]

I'll answer only with some obvious questions. What happens to:
* multiple leading spaces  (my edit-illiterate guess, to stop this case from 
putting comma at begining)
* multiple trailing spaces
* field with only one word , at beginning, at end, multiple spaces both 
sides
* empty field
* space-filled field

Have not tested it.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth Brody" <kenbrody at bestweb.net>
To: "filePro mailing list" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:34 PM
Subject: filePro tip -- edits


>I recently had someone ask me for a solution to this problem:
>
>    A file is being imported which contains a field which contains
>    multiple spaces between words, which need to be shrunk to a
>    single space.
>
> I suggested an edit:
>
>    1space    { (" " [{!" "!}]) | * }
>
>
> It turned out that the field was a name field, and was actually
> in last name, first name format, and it needed a comma after the
> last name.  Unfortunately, the names themselves may contain
> spaces, so inserting a comma before the first space is not an
> option.  (Also, the first name did not always start in the same
> column, so MID was not an option, either.)
>
> The following will insert a comma before any set of multiple
> spaces, and condense any whitespace to a single space:
>
>    ln_fn     { {!" "!}@ | ( <, > !"  "! [{!" "!}] ) | * }
>
> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine why this edit
> needs the {!" "!}@ at the beginning.  Bonus points for answering
> correctly without actually testing the edit without it.  :-)
>
> -- 
> +-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
> | Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com | #include              |
> | kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com     |    <std_disclaimer.h> |
> +-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------+
> Don't e-mail me at: <mailto:ThisIsASpamTrap at gmail.com>
>
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