Keith McKeeman to ALL on 01-May-96 22:03
>I need to strip off sometimes 1 or sometimes 2 characters from
>the start of the fild contents.
>Is there a command that I can enter  the [update to] that I can
>run when content is between A and Z  and agan when contents are like
>"."  ?
 
 
I had to do this with a blood bank data base  I ended up creating 
(in an intermediate table)  a
'calculated field'like:
 
newfld: iif(mid([oldfield],2,1)="",right([oldfield],len([oldfield])- 2,right(
  [oldfield],)
 
In the 'otherwise' clause you may have to put another 'iif' in the case where
 If  the period jumps around even more.  Or you might need to locate the 
POSITION of the period if it is not fixed in the end position by using the 
INSTR funcion as part of the calculated field (also using an 'iif')
 
 
Or is thee an even better way? Carl??
 
Later...
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