Erase part of string before/after a character

[Anne Todd]

Hi all, if I have a variable with values that all follow the same pattern: "29.34.52.92", where the variable is a string and has different sequences of four two-digit numbers separated by periods...

(1) How can I remove the second half of the string, such that my example would be left as"29.34", and
(2) How can I remove the first half of the string, such that my example would be left as "52.92"?

[George Ford]

if they are all the same, then substr would work.

g first = substr(varname,1,5)
g second = substr(varname,7,.)

[daniel klein]

See continued discussion