Subj : Complicated email parse or text extraction and database insertion
To   : comp.programming
From : code_worthy
Date : Mon Aug 15 2005 12:50 pm

I am trying to strip some data out of numerous emails and place it in
my database.  I know that this seems as if it has been done before.
But, this is a little different.  First, the numerous emails all have a
set of data that needs to be extracted and inserted into the database.
Some of the data in the email is id, name, address, city, state, zip,
company, etc.  The catch is that the date is formated and presented
differently in each email.  Take into consideration the following email
examples:
  - excert from email #1
     ID:.............. 12345
     Name:............ JOHN DOE
     Address:......... PO BOX 9999
     City:............ Somecity
     State:........... CA
     Zip Code:........ 90210
     ===============================================================

         Company Information:

     1.:-
     Company Name:....... Perl N PHP Scripts Welcome

  - excert from email #2
     Full Name --  Doe, John
     Address -- PO BOX 9999
     City -- Somecity  St -- California
     Zip -- 90210
     Company Name -- Perl N PHP Scripts Welcome
     ID -- 12345

  - excert from email #3
     Name.....Address.....City.....State.....Zip.....Identification
Number.....Company
     John Doe.....PO Box
9999.....Somecity.....CA.....90210.....12345.....Perl N PHP Scripts
Welcome

  - excert from email #4

Name.........Address.........City.........State.....Zip.......Identification
Number.....Company
     JOHN DOE.....PO BOX
9999.....SOMECITY.....CA........90210.....12345.....................Perl
N PHP Scripts Welcome

     Can anyone help me with either scripts that have already been
developed or suggestions on how to go about striping out the needed
information from emails with out knowing their format or order of the
data?  THANKS IN ADVANCE.

.