pulling substring from a field containing a comma 1

[maynard444]

All right, here is my question: I am trying to pull a string from a field that contains a comma. This is an employee name field, and all I want to pull out of it is the last name of the employee. So if the record contained:

Smith, Bob

I would only want to pull the substring before the comma.
If anybody has done this or has any information let me know. Thanks
maynard

 

[IdoMillet]

Split({Name_Field}, ",&quot[1]

Cheers,
- Ido


CUT, Visual CUT, and DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[synapsevampire]

Or:

left({table.field}, instr({table.field},",&quot-1)

or the fastest would be to use the database to do the work using a SQL Expression, but since you didn't share your database type and version, I can't construct it for you.

Ido's tidy little solution creates an array out of the field and then demonstrates the first element of the array, the above returns everything to the left of the comma, and might have a slight performance gain.

-k

 

[maynard444]

Thanks for the help,it's exactly what i needed.
maynard