Extracting Data before an inconsistent special character

[lrhatigan]

Hi, 

I am trying to extract all data before a space or special character from a text field, however the text field can contain various formats with multiple inconsistent breaks in each row. Can anyone recommend the best approach given that the special character will not always be the same?

In the event that the first character is a special character, this should be ignored and all data before the next special character extracted (last example below)

Data	Required Result
C1_ABCD_EFGH	C1
A2C TestData	A2C
ABC *	ABC
12AA-Number and letter	12AA
[AB]-SampleData	AB

Thanks!

[DataNath · Accepted solution]

Hey @lrhatigan, if you just want the first alphanumeric group then you could use something like the following:

([A-Z0-9]+)

[BS_THE_ANALYST · Accepted solution]

@lrhatigan RegEx can help here :-)

[lrhatigan]

Thanks. Both methods giving desired result - appreciate the help.