Simple regex to parse names

[Scrumbled]

I have a list of names that needs to be parsed into first name and last name (and exclude the rest). It looks like this:

TURNER, JANICE F
VAN DUYN, TAYLOR
BREAULT, JASON D
LOOBY, CYNTHIA M
REILLY, SHAWNMARIE

So the first part of the string (last name) may contain a space but is always followed by a comma. The rest of the string may contain a middle initial, which I want to exclude. The result should look like this:

TURNER        JANICE
VAN DUYN     TAYLOR
BREAULT       JASON
LOOBY           CYNTHIA
REILLY           SHAWNMARIE

[mst3k]

technically you don't really need regex for this. you could do a substring from 0 to the findstring of "," within your string, that will get you the last name.

then another substring of everything AFTER the findstring of "," will be the first+middle.

from the new first+middle column, do a text to columns tool, with a space delimiter. we'll assume anywhere there's a space, it's separating first and middle name.

i got the regex to work too. i think substring/findstring is computationally easier on the machine, but either way works

[Luke_C · Accepted solution]

Hi @Scrumbled 

Here's two ways, one with regex and one with the text to columns tools:

Below is the regex I used, although there are definitely a number of ways to do it.

(.*),\s([[:alpha:]]+).*

[Scrumbled]

I know this can be done using text to columns, but I was looking for a solution with fewer steps/tools--even though regex may be computationally more taxing.

Thanks to both of the respondents!