>Naomi
>
>Thanks for the pointers, that idea really works in my situation:
>
>

>PARAMETERS tcName
>IF PCOUNT()=0
>	lcRefDocName=[CUNNINGHAM LYNNE,]
>ELSE
>	lcRefDocName=tcName
>ENDIF
>LOCAL lcReturn,lcLast,lcFirst,mi,lnLen
>
>lcRefDocName=ALLTRIM(lcRefDocName)
>* Replace any comma with []
>lcNewName=STRTRAN(lcRefDocName,',',[])
>lnWordCnt=GETWORDCOUNT(lcNewName)
>lcLastName=GETWORDNUM(lcNewName,1)
>lcFirstName=GETWORDNUM(lcNewName,2)
>lcMI=GETWORDNUM(lcNewName,3)
>
>lcReturn=[|]+lcLastName+[|]+lcFirstName+[|]+lcMI+[|]
>
>RETURN lcReturn
>
>

What are you doing in case of multiple first names or multiple last names? Such cases are not uncommon. Also can two people be in one field?

BTW, once you get number of words, should you just go in a loop? And I think alines should be a bit quicker than GetWordCount/GetWordNum. You may try to compare speed on the huge files.