processing a string by Excel

Hi,
I get equation in the form of a string from the output of a software that I want to modify by Excel. I am no expert in Excel and I am wondering if some expert in Excel at this forum can do this for me.
Pls see the attached Excel file. The string in cell A1 is an example string that I will be explaining how I want this string to be modified. Here are the attributes of the string.

a. The string will have ASCII characters in it.

b. The string is a mathematical equation. I will be pasting it into Mathcad once the Excel program modifies it.

c. The string has parameters and mathematical operators in it (+,-,*,/,^). Each parameter is seperated from another parameter by at least one space. There is no space in a parameter. So, each parameter starts with a space and ends with a space. The parameters of the example string in cell A1 are listed from cells A5 to A14 in the attached file.

d. If a parameter has paranthesis in it (), then the program will disregard any character in the parameter outside the paranthesis and take the characters inside the paranthesis. For example, it will modify the parameter in cell A5 from "F(u)_X1" to "u". If the parameter has no paranthesis in it, like the one in cell A14, then it will take it as is.

e. The format of the string is such that the multiplication sign may be omitted between parameters. If there is no mathematical operator between two adjacent parameters, it should be assumed that the math operator between them is multiplication. So, the Excel program should insert a multiplication sign between them.

f. Then the program will reassemple the string in the form of an equation by appropriately keeping the mathematical operators in the original expression.

The cells B5 to B14 show the modified parameters of the original parameters in the string in cell A1. The Excel program should put together the parameters in B5 to B14 as shown in cell A18.

I will appreciate if someone can write an Excel program for me that accomplishes this. Many thanks.

Mark Neil

Hi Mudraker,
Thanks a lot for your reply. I appreciate it.
I have noticed an error in the expression. There is a redundant * sign right before the closing paranthesis in the example in Book1.xls file. It should not there. Also, I have run the script on more examples and noticed that it doesn't do quite what it is supposed to do. One more thing is that I will copy the resultant expression and paste it in Mathcad. Can the program write the result in a cell instead of message box?
I have attached another Excel file (Book11.xls) to this post including more examples for string. Cell A1 is the same example as you worked on. Cells A2 and A3 are new examples to test the script for.
The strings have parantesis that grabs the whole expression as well as paranthesis in the string parameters. It requires extra effort in programming to diffrentiate between them. Therefore, I have the option to use some other type of parantesis in the parameters. For example, I can use square brackets "[]" or curly parantesis "{}" in the parameters. I think this may make the programming easier since the program keeps the paranthesis as is () and detects the square brackets (or or curly paranthesis) in the parameters and modify the expression accordingly. Cell A4 in the attached file has an expression that uses square brackets within parameters. The expression in A4 is the same expression as in A3 except the square brackets. Cells A7 to A9 has the modified expressions of the strings in A1 to A3, respectively.

Thanks in advance.

Mark Neil

Norm,
Thanks for your help.
I have added three more examples of string in the file attached (Book111.xls). The first three are the same as in Book11.xls. But I changed them so that parameters have brackets instead of paranthesis.
Strings from A4 to A6 are new.
I have noticed that the parameters in the string A1 have extra characters after a closing bracket "]" while all the parameters in the strings in A2 and A3 end with a bracket. I have a hunch that if you add to the program the intelligence that it ignores rest of the parameter until the next space once it detects a closing bracket, it would work just fine.
Thanks.

Mark

Hi Norm,
Thanks a lot for your effort in writing this program. I have tested it in few sample strings and it works just fine. This was great help for me.
Could you do a minor modification to this program? Instead of writing the result to column B, can you write them to column A in order by skipping one row from the last expression.
Even if this is not done, the present version does the job for me. Thanks a lot again :-)

Mark.

Hi Norm,
The program already finds how many rows populated in column A and writes the results in column B in each respective row. Say, rows from A1 to A4 contain formulas. I prefer to see the results from A6 to A9 in order having A5 empty.
Thanks a bunch.

Mark.

Many thanks. The programs does what I want it to do.

Mark.