Remove large part of string up to first '+' character

[JamesEffix]

Hi,

I have a source file from which a certain colomn needs to be cleaned.

The strings in that column are composed as follows <string part a> + <string part b> + <string part c>.

part b and c have little variation and is section I'm interested in. That needs to be written to an SQL database, for further processing

How can I remove the first part of the string, including the '+' character and store it cleanly in the database. 'Part a' has a lot of variation. So it has to remove all before and including the first + (there can be more, so it has to be the first one). Can this be solved with a certain RegEx - formula?

thanks for your time and assistance.

regards

James Effix

[jdunkerley79 · Accepted solution]

The REGEX bellow will parse the string you sent:

([^+]+)\+?(.*)

The first part ($1) will be up to the first +. If no + then it will return the whole of the string in $1.

$2 will contain the rest of the string after the +.

The easiest tool to use for this is a REGEX tool in parse mode which will add 2 new columns

Sample attached

[JamesEffix]

Thanks this is exactly what I needed.

[paul_houghton]

I'm just wondering if you could use the normal text to columns tool with + as the delimiter to make it simpler still?

[jdunkerley79]

Yep would work fine (though Regex more flexible :))

[jdunkerley79]

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