On Sun, 19 Aug 2001, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
  Lastname" into "Lastname comma First",
and then make them try to expand
 their programs to deal with exceptions, such as "Martin Van Buren" 
Ugh.  That's difficult at ANY level :)
I wrote some software to do such a thing in FoxPro that had to parse text
coming from a flat file into a database table.  It had to deal with a
whole lot of variations (first initials only, middle initials, Sr. or Jr.
suffixes, multi-word last names like DE LA CRUZ, etc.) but it did fairly
well, with only the occasional exception.
But it was easy for me because I'm a MIGHTY PROGRAMMING GAWD!!!
Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger                
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