Question

Having a hard time with this one as I don’t think I know all of my options.

I have to parse a free form text field that I need to map the values to a database.

Here is some example text, NOTE: not all fields have to be there, not all delimiters are the same and not all descriptors are available. I do need to check if the value is numeric only or is it alpha numeric.

Example 1

field1: 999-999234-24-2 

field2 Description: a short description 

field3: 3.222.1 

asdfg 

field number four: NO 

field5:

Example 2

field1: 999-999234-24-2/field2 Description: a short description/field3: 3.222.1 asdfg/field number four: NO/field5:

Example 3

999-999234-24-2 

Example 4

field1: 999-999234-24-2 field2 Description: a short description field3: 3.222.1 asdfg field number four: NO field5:

Example 5

field1: 999-999234-24-2 - field2 Description: a short description - field3: 3.222.1 asdfg - field number four: NO - field5: 

What I would like is all fields X to be in there own column. NOTE the example data is all in the same order but live data is not.

Now I don’t mind doing this in steps if I need to but having a hard time just parsing the values up into columns. any suggestions?

I was thinking some sort of case function with a RegEx but not luck so far.

Answer 1

after much though/trial and error I’m going to read them into an array and parse out each line of text. It’s long and going to be a mess but should get the job done.