i found a whole lot of files w/o Artist, for some reason, although it is in Filename, and fortutiously has a '-' separator
but i cannot get $strchr (with Cutright) to play nicely to extract the Artist precisely from Filename
it seems quite weird.
if i use Cutleft it extracts the rest of the Filename string exactly
if i use Strrchr, it makes no difference ie it cuts to exactly the same place (meaning that there is only one in the string)
but Cutright cuts to a completely different position than Cutright.
Have you tested which result you get from $strchr()? (Billie Holiday only accidentally gets the correct result as that name is just as long as "strange fruit")
And have you tried that number with a plain $cut...() function?
If that set of functions does not work for you - have you tried "Guess value" with
Source string: %_filename%
Target string: %artist% - %dummy%
"Guess value" was only a suggestion as you seem to have also problems with the functions $cutleft() and $cutright() - the result that you expect could be achieved with the function $left().
The cut functions have a dependence on an absolute length, even if that value is derived from another length calculation. This may end up getting the desired results, but isn't the cleanest approach.
The Guess Values funcion is far more precise, and does not depend on values. But it does depend on having some clearly identifiable method of separation. In your example, this sepearation is space dash space " - " and helps to define from what I believe is your file name, into both the artist and title.
The method was already outlined above, I suggest you try this.
Note that the separator is literal. If any files you select and apply this action to does not have " - " as the actual separator, no results will be found. You will then have to resort to changing the action to reflect whatever truly defines the gap between fields.
$cutright does not "cut from the right" but - as the documentation tells you:
$cutRight(x,n) removes the last n characters of string x and returns the result.
The accidental result with Billie Holiday only works because the part in front of the hyphen is just as long as the part behind it.
Bill Withers has the hyphen at position 14 and if you remove the 14 characters on the right with $cutright() you end up with the string shown in the preview.
If you want to cut the filename so that only the part up to the hyphen remains, then use $left(%_filename%,$strchr(%_filename%,-))
