I don't know if it matters much outside of this thread, but the stage below doesn't work if there are blanks after the tag name and before the period, or after the period and before the nickname (e.g., ':nick . CLOWN '. Yes, both of these are allowed and handled by NAMEFIND. Also, there is no rule about blank lines between entries in a NAMES file -- blank lines are ignored whether they are before, within, or after an entry.
Unless a NAMEFIND stage invokes the NAMEFIND command under the covers, I think the chance of missing one or two quirks and introducing an incompatibility is higher than I'd like. And when users write tools that create NAMES files, things like spurious blanks here and there start creeping in. - mb > > Since there isn't an existing Pipe stage to deal with NAMES files, what > > would be the most efficient way to remove the entry for CLOWN using CMS > > Pipes? If I wanted to update one of the attributes (the tags like :node.)? > > As long as I obey the blank lines between an entry rule, I know I can move > > the tags around within the entry in an arbitrary manner and NAMEFIND will > > still work properly. Would using fromlabel/tolabel be an option? Is that > > the most efficient solution or is there a better way? > > > > I haven't studied the NAMES format, but if the :nick tag is the first word > of the record, you could do something like this: > not pick anycase from w1 == /:nick.CLOWN/ to substr 1.6 of w1 == /:nick./ > > Rob >
