# Complicated Field Editing Format

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/complicated-field-editing-format/45933
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 18, 2019, 7:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/complicated-field-editing-format/45933 "2019-07-18T07:55:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 17

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### Author: ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2019, 5:42pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/complicated-field-editing-format/45933/17 "2019-07-18T17:42:09Z")

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It looks as though the forum formatter has swallowed some of the characters.  
I found another thread that also deals with duplications:

> [@Merge duplicate words](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-duplicate-words/16289/3):
>
> You want to keep the first value. That's more complicated. [Edit:] Action: Format value Field: Genre Format string: $regexp($reverse($regexp($regexp($reverse($regexp($regexp(%Genre%,'^(\s+;\*|\s\*;+)+|(\s+;\*|\s\*;+)+$|((?\<=;)\s+)|(\s+(?=;))',),'^|$',';')),'(;[^;]+)(?=(\1|;.\*?\1))',),'^;+|;+$',)),'(?\<=;)',' ') Replace Genre with any other tag and it will remove duplicates too. This action "fixes" first the multiple value string (remove multiple spaces after ; separator). It will add exac…

it uses the semicolon as separator, so I used it for the $meta\_sep()  
and it suggests such a  
Format string: `$regexp($reverse($regexp($regexp($reverse($regexp($regexp($meta_sep(artist,;),'^(\s+;|\s;+)+|(\s+;|\s;+)+$|((?<=;)\s+)|(\s+(?=;))',),'^|$',';')),'(;[^;]+)(?=(\1|;.*?\1))',),'^;+|;+$',)),'(?<=;)',' ')`

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