Extract date from text

[emil]

Hi,

I am trying to extract text from a string and not sure what is the best way here.

The input is :

manhatan road left turn

manhatan road right

manhatan road

and the output should be.

manhatan road	left turn
manhatan road	right
manhatan road

Basically I need to separate identical text in a column and the extra in a second one.

Thanks for your inputs! 

[BenMoss]

Hi!

In order to provide you with a robust solution could you share more examples of what the text may look like.

Ben

[emil]

Hi Ben,

thank you for the reply. Here is a more specific set of data:

Input:

ISOPROPANOL INDUSTRIAL

ISOPROPANOL KML

ISOPROPANOL PH

ISOPROPANOL PH KML

ISOPROPANOL PURE

ISOPROPANOL PURE PREMIUM

ISOBUTANOL

ISOBUTANOL   SYN

ISOBUTANOL KML

ISOBUTANOL NO

TERTIARY BUTANOL

TERTIARY BUTANOL SOL

DIACETONE ALCOHOL BE

DIACETONE ALCOHOL BE   NS

Output:

ISOPROPANOL	INDUSTRIAL
ISOPROPANOL	KML
ISOPROPANOL	PH
ISOPROPANOL	PH KML
ISOPROPANOL	PURE
ISOPROPANOL	PURE PREMIUM
ISOBUTANOL
ISOBUTANOL	SYN
ISOBUTANOL	KML
ISOBUTANOL	NO
TERTIARY BUTANOL
TERTIARY BUTANOL	SOL
DIACETONE ALCOHOL	BE
DIACETONE ALCOHOL	BE   NS

Hope this helps.

Many thanks,

Emil

[BenMoss]

This is a difficult challenge I feel; but happy for someone to prove me wrong.

Take your last example, the logic of identifying the same words and trimming after. It matches all the way to BE so how would the logic know that this should be parsed out to the second field eleven though it's a repeated element so should actually exist in the first.

[jdunkerley79 · Accepted solution]

That's a really interesting problem...

Have a simplified solution but it can't cope with the BE issue @BenMoss pointed out. Basically identifies the longest block of common words from the start in the list and keeps that.

You could add a filter to exclude 2 letter words or something like that but without knowing more, hard to do 

Have attached a sample get start of common text - possibly over engineered couldnt think of easier way to do.

[emil]

Thank you for the feedback. I does help but as you said it does not solve the entire problem. I will keep digging into it.