Extract specific text

[Hans Schubert]

Good morning,

Start here with 'performancecomment'

Use the following code to extract the text after the final comma to 'finish'
gen finish = substr(performancecomment, strrpos(performancecomment, ",") + 1, length(performancecomment))

Now I need to extract the text between the first and second commas from the right to 'wanted'
Having trouble figuring the code out to achieve this.

Any help appreciated please.

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input str232 performancecomment str71 finish str19 wanted
"in touch, led over 1f out, forged clear"            " forged clear"       "led over 1f out"    
"mid-field, ridden 2f out, one paced"                " one paced"          "ridden 2f out"      
"mid-field, pushed along 3f out, beaten over 2f out" " beaten over 2f out" "pushed along 3f out"
end

[Nick Cox]

help split

is an alternative.

Otherwise you need to find the position of the first comma and then get the length of the following desired substring by subtracting from the position of the last comma.

Otherwise you could turn it into a regular expression problem.

This works for your example with moss from SSC. Trim to taste.

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input str50 performancecomment str19(finish wanted)
"in touch, led over 1f out, forged clear"            " forged clear"       "led over 1f out"    
"mid-field, ridden 2f out, one paced"                " one paced"          "ridden 2f out"      
"mid-field, pushed along 3f out, beaten over 2f out" " beaten over 2f out" "pushed along 3f out"
end

moss performancecomment, match(",(.*),") regex 

[Maarten Buis]

gen reverse = ustrreverse(performancecomment)
split reverse, gen(part) parse(",")
foreach var of varlist part* {
    replace `var' = ustrreverse(`var')
}

part1 is the last comment (finish), part2 the part between the first and second comma from the right (wanted), part3 the part between the second and third comma from the right, etc.

[Hans Schubert]

Thanks, Nick and Maarten.

The split command will do the job nicely.