Hi klint! Welcome to my lonely thread where it seems I have created an impossible batch challenge. lol Anyway... the item you pointed out is just another reason why it seems this might not be possible in a batch operation since these recipes often have oddball things like the comma after the eggs and the repetition of the 3/4 cup measurement in the banana descpription. :( Well I think the more bananas the better so I'll certainly try stuffing more in the recipe. :=)

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Nitpicking is what I live for! (Not really.) klint: Here, "eggs" is not a unit of measure. It should be part of the ingredients (so that would be the third token.) So the above should be: This brings up an interesting point. I'd consider an egg is a perfectly valid unit of measurement. It's also a valid ingredient. Should, "'egg', 'separated'," "'egg, separated'," or "'egg', 'egg, separated'?" Such are the design decisions that must be made. klint: P.S. I would have used two bananas. But then it depends on how large your banana is... I have a dirty, dirty mind. cypster: I did say I'd do it in VBScript, and so I did. The output probably won't be perfect, but I work with what I got. (Mostly apathy.) Also: the best language for this would be Perl. Usage: Save this as a .VBS. Then call it from a Command Script like so: cscript //nologo <inFile> <outFile.csv> Option Explicit 'Very important. Never start a VBScript without this line. Dim inFileName, outFileName, out, fso, errorLevel inFileName = WScript.Arguments(0) outFileName = WScript.Arguments(1) Set out = WScript.StdOut Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") out.WriteLine "In: " & inFileName out.WriteLine "Out: " & outFileName errorLevel = Main() out.WriteLine "Done" WScript.Quit errorLevel 'Returns the next line, ignoring blank lines. 'Returns an empty string if EoF is hit Function GetNextLine(file) 'As String Dim ret ret = "" Do Until file.AtEndOfStream Or ret <> "" ret = Trim(file.ReadLine) Loop GetNextLine = ret End Function 'Gets the start of our recipe information. 'Assumes the first line has the recipe's name, and the following line 'is the serving size. 'lastLine will return the last line read if it didn't find the servings. 'This will probably need work; your example seems incomplete. Function GetHeader(file, ByRef lastLine) 'As String Dim ret, line 'Find the name of the recipe ret = GetNextLine(file) & vbNewLine ret = ret & vbNewLine & "Estimated Yield: " & vbNewLine & _ vbNewLine & "Actual Yield: " & vbNewLine & _ vbNewLine & "Serving Size: " 'Find the # of servings line = GetNextLine(file) If CBool(InStr(1, line, "serving", 1)) Then Dim token, servings servings = 1 For Each token In Split(line) If IsNumeric(token) Then servings = CInt(token) Exit For End If Next 'token ret = ret & servings Else 'If we're here, then something went wrong ret = ret & "1" lastLine = line End If GetHeader = ret & vbNewLine End Function 'Is it a measurement (Y/N)? Function IsMeasurement(str) 'As Boolean Dim ret, s ret = False s = LCase(str) 'Everything in Measurements must be lowercase Dim m, Measurements Measurements = Array("cup", "eggs", "egg", "tsp", "tbsp", "dash", "mashed") For Each m In Measurements If s = m Then ret = True Exit For End If Next 'm IsMeasurement = ret End Function 'Parses the line and adds the commas. Most of our time will be spent here. Function Parse(line) 'As String Dim ret(2), i, tokens tokens = Split(line) 'Part 1: The amount For i = 0 To UBound(tokens) tokens(i) = LTrim(Replace(tokens(i), "¼", " 1/4")) tokens(i) = LTrim(Replace(tokens(i), "½", " 1/2")) tokens(i) = LTrim(Replace(tokens(i), "¾", " 3/4")) If IsNumeric(Right(tokens(i), 1)) And IsNumeric(Left(tokens(i), 1)) Then 'This token is a number ret(0) = LTrim(ret(0) & " " & tokens(i)) Else 'We're past the amount Exit For End If Next 'i 'Part 2: The measurement For i = i To UBound(tokens) tokens(i) = Replace(tokens(i), ",", "") ret(1) = ret(1) & " " & tokens(i) If IsMeasurement(tokens(i)) Then i = i + 1 Exit For End If Next 'i ret(1) = LTrim(ret(1)) 'Part 3: The rest For i = i To UBound(tokens) ret(2) = ret(2) & " " & tokens(i) Next 'i ret(2) = """" & LTrim(ret(2)) & """" Parse = Join(ret, ",") End Function 'The main body of the script; its return value will be the script's ErrorLevel. Function Main() 'As Integer Dim ret Dim inFile, outFile Dim line ret = 1 Set inFile = fso.OpenTextFile(inFileName, 1) Set outFile = fso.OpenTextFile(outFileName, 2, True) line = "" outFile.WriteLine GetHeader(inFile, line) If line = "" Then _ line = GetNextLine(inFile) Do Until inFile.AtEndOfStream ret = 0 line = GetNextLine(inFile) outFile.WriteLine Parse(line) Loop inFile.Close outFile.Close Main = ret End Function

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oh wow!!! Razor, I thought I had a lot to learn with batch scripting!! I just don't know if I have the courage to try this new language... I just don't know.... :( But I guess I have no choice since very few guys are commenting in this thread so I guess I can accept their silence as some indication that this cannot be done with batch scripting. Well I think it will take my feeble brain a few days or maybe even weeks to absorb the huge chunk of script that is above so I will do my best to post reports on how its going. Thanks a million for the help so far Razor. I will test it for sure since you took the time to post it. I'm just trembling, that's all... lol.

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Just a warning, but CMD has all but abandoned by MS as a scripting platform, as has VBScript. These days, MS is all about PowerShell. (PS may even be included w/ Win7.) If you want to learn something you can take forward, try PS or something non-MS, like Python or Perl.

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