Filtering lastnames

[lkatz1]

Is there anyway to filter lastnames by criterea ,we have over 50,000 records which some have only first names some only lastnames but always the first name of the sections starts with the ascii character that all following records lastnames shall start until next ,if you'll be lookinh in attachmament first row has digit which is the break section 51949 after that all last names shall start with "O" which ever starts with different character is going to be considered firstname until next section 51949 which there last Will start with the first row character which maybe a "B" so always our break are the digits and the next row is the first letter of lastname we only took a screenshot in excel but we using alpha five
Thank You

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Filtering lastnames

Is there anyway to filter lastnames by criterea

Yes - surely you can filter all lastname first characters between break sections by the lastname, first letter at least. Does that little sample s/shot represent the whole of the data file? if so you aint gonna get more out of it unless the cryptic characters represent something that you know and somewhere you know where "criteria" resides. It looks completely disorderly to me from that sample. I would suggest start with what in your data is meaningful, how to identify it and describe that - if you seriously want some assistance at least.


And, lkatz1, in addition to what has been suggested many times before about indicating your actual name somewhere, also where you are from - for me that would help to understand if scant explanations given are to be seen in the light of language difficulties. So help can be offered at a more suitable level.

Regards
Ray

[lkatz1]

Re: Filtering lastnames

katz ,france here is the sample

51949 is always a new section

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Filtering lastnames

Hi Katz
What If
1. you add a field, call it something to mean "First Letter of Surname"
2. Go through the table sequentially from the top, and after each line with a section marker, fill each new field with the letter/s of the first letter/s of the first record
- You could use the Operation, Update Records.

You should then have a table that you could sort and filter, without the section markers, with say, all surnames in an alphabetic order and the criteria that belong to the name. Im not sure what criteria are, but you might want a unique number in the new field after the letter to keep together the batch within markers say "O_0001" so that when another "O" section comes up it would become say "O_0034" to keep those O's from mingling.

Does this give you something towards and answer?
You may have the additional problem eg. where a title such as "RABBI" gets treated as a Surname in the "R"'s section?

[lkatz1]

Re: Filtering lastnames

How do automatically 135 sections 90000 records

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Filtering lastnames

You first need to define the rules.

What conditions determine if and when some circumstance or condition (if) indicates what type of data and (then) how to treat it.
If you can manually or visually see and describe how to apply rules, only then can a level of automation be applied.
eg IF the line is a group marker THEN the following data will be treated as a group UNTIL the next marker or EOF is reached.
---Within that group, IF the first field starts with the letter of the first record THEN it is a surname record ELSE it is some other info attached to it.