st: RE: RE: string manipulation

["Rajesh Tharyan" <R.Tharyan@exeter.ac.uk>]

Hi,
That works.. brilliant 
thanks
rajesh

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of David Harrison
Sent: 15 May 2006 17:24
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: RE: string manipulation

How's this...?

gen surname = word(name, wordcount(name))
gen inits =
trim(reverse(subinword(reverse(name),reverse(surname),"",1)))
gen newname = trim(surname + " " + inits)


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Rajesh
Tharyan
Sent: 15 May 2006 17:01
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: string manipulation

Hi all,


I have a list of names in the following format

A K Nath
B G G goldfinger
G gomes
R raja micheal
Lothar

I need to get them in the following format

Nath A K
Goldfinger B G G
Gomes G
Micheal R raja
Lothar

if they were all of the same length I could use the substr function to
do this without any problem. With different lengths and different number
of forenames I am not sure 

But, This is what I have been thinking

1. If there is way to find out the position of the last space then I
could use that info to split the names into forenames and surname 2.
then concat them in the way I require 3. Since the number of forenames

Am I right? How do I get the position of the last space. I know Index
will give me the location of the first instance of a character is there
something similar location of the last instance? Or to start looking
from the back?

I am using Stata  8.2 

Thanks
rajesh

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