listwds and new program

["Morris Krok" essence@xxxxxxxx]

Carl,
    Thanks your explanation regarding Listwds is precisely what I
needed. I was delighted to find that wildcards could be used as well and if
my memory is correct it also sorts the words. I found the program very
useful in analyzing a catalog containing irrational codes.
  Now I want to change these codes to that that uses the first three
letters of the first word of the title. However I do not want to discard the
old code which at present is placed at the beginning of the item with a
space between it and the item; instead I would like to transfer it to the
end of the item with a space in between. The code they are using contains a
capital letter plus three or four numbers and then there is a space between
it and the first word of the item.
  What I need is a program in Xy4 that looks at the first word of a line
to see if it is a code or just a word; if it is a code to do the transfer of
the old code, go back to the beginning of the item, define the first three
letters place it back to the beginning of the that line and add a space
between it and the fitrst word of the item. If the first word of the line is
not a code, the program must continue to the next line. There is a need to
do this as some items contain more than one line and I do not know if I have
the programming skills to surmount this obstacle. Presently I am using the
tedious approach of going through each item and condensing it so that it
does not occupy more than one line. The program must of course switch off
when it gets to the end of the file and then jump back to the beginning of
the file.