remove part of a string (contingent upon number of periods within that string)?

[#1]

I have a column with strings of varying length.  All strings have 1 semicolon separating the first and last part of the string.

some strings with no 'periods':

_______________;______

some strings with 1 period

______.______;_______

some strings with 2 periods

___._______._____;_________

I want to create a new column and populate it with the string of interest with the following conditions:

• IF a string contains exactly 2 periods, I want to remove everything from the second period up to the semicolon
  • example:  "before1st.after1st.after2nd;afterSemiColon"  would return  "before1st.after1st;afterSemiColon"
• ELSE, i just want to leave the string alone (no changes)

I'm having trouble with this since the length of characters between each period can vary

any help on the best way to achieve this would be greatly appreciated!  thank you!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Assuming there are no periods after the semicolon, this script should work:

(Change "Column" to the name of the column with strings)

col = Column( "Column" );

For Each Row(

  w = Words( col[], ".;" );

  If( N Items( w ) == 4,

  col[] = w[1] || "." || w[2] || ";" || w[4]

  );

);

[#3]

thank you MS!  this works great. 

How would I modify this so that instead of editing the contents of "Column", it instead populates a new column with the new edited string?

[#4]

col = Column( "Column" );

new_col = New Column( "New Column", character );

For Each Row(

  w = Words( col[], ".;" );

  If( N Items( w ) == 4,

  new_col[] = w[1] || "." || w[2] || ";" || w[4],

  new_col[] = col[]

  );

);