how to find name within a name

navisionerin

Hello,

newbie here

I have this name 'Name Name2 Name3 Surname'. From this I need to extract the surname.
How is this possible. If they were two names only, I could exclude up to the first space but what if they are more?

txeriff

can you provide an example?

if the string has the format you have defined (with spaces between each word) then you can start looping from last char until you find a blank space, char by char

ShaiHulud

FullName := 'Name Name2 Nam3 Surname';
if StrPos(FullName, ' ') <> 0 then
  LastName := SelectStr(StrLen(DelChr(FullName, DelChr(FullName, '=', ' '))) + 1, ConvertStr(FullName, ' ', ','));
else
  LastName := FullName;

SelectStr returns the specified element from a comma separated string.

StrLen(DelChr(FullName, DelChr(FullName, '=', ' ')))

returns the number of spaces in the name
And +1 gives you the number of names, because there's always more names than spaces

ConvertStr(FullName, ' ', ',')

replaces spaces in the name with commas for SelectStr to work
And we need to add a check that there really are spaces in the name (maybe incorrect data entry, or a case of mononym)

txeriff

can you provide an example?

if the string has the format you have defined (with spaces between each word) then you can start looping from last char until you find a blank space, char by char

navisionerin

the format defined, yes. COuld you point me how to do this? would it be
repeat until?

ShaiHulud

FullName := 'Name Name2 Nam3 Surname';
if StrPos(FullName, ' ') <> 0 then
  LastName := SelectStr(StrLen(DelChr(FullName, DelChr(FullName, '=', ' '))) + 1, ConvertStr(FullName, ' ', ','));
else
  LastName := FullName;

SelectStr returns the specified element from a comma separated string.

StrLen(DelChr(FullName, DelChr(FullName, '=', ' ')))

returns the number of spaces in the name
And +1 gives you the number of names, because there's always more names than spaces

ConvertStr(FullName, ' ', ',')

replaces spaces in the name with commas for SelectStr to work
And we need to add a check that there really are spaces in the name (maybe incorrect data entry, or a case of mononym)

navisionerin

thank you!!!!! @ShaiHulud

txeriff

I would use a loop and start from the ending, something like (untested):

mystring:='Name Name2 Nam3 Surname';
vFound:=false;
vStrlen:=strlen(mystring);
vSurname:='';
vCharCount:=0;
repeat
  vCharCount+=1;
  if copystr(mystring,vStrlen,1) =' ' then //here you may need to check if its a blank space, maybe convert it     
   vFound:=true 
  else     
    vstrlen-=1;
until (vFound) or (vstrlen<=0)

//now you know where last blank space starts copy  from there.
//also vcharcount could be the difference between strlen(mystring)-vStrlen
vSurname:=copystr(mystring,vStrlen+1,vCharCount);
message(vsurname);

this ensures you always get the last word.

navisionerin

thank you @txeriff