Ignoring Diacritics accessing Fixed Field Data

[Jacobs, Jane W]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to write a routine to construct a text file of OCLC search key from 
a group of existing records.  What I want is something like:

Brah,vasa/2003

That is 1st four letters of 100 + comma + 1st four letters of 245 + slash + 
date.

In principle I have this working with:


open( FOURS, ">4-4-date.txt" );


while ( my $r = $batch->next() ) {
      
        my @fields = $r->field( '100' );
        foreach my $field ( @fields ) {
                my $ME = $field->subfield('a');
                my $four100 = substr( $ME, 0, 4 );
      
                print FOURS "$four100";
        }     

        my @fields = $r->field( '245' );
        foreach my $field ( @fields ) {
                my $TITLE = $field->subfield('a');
                my $four245 = substr( $TITLE, 0, 4 );
                print FOURS ",$four245";
        }     

        my @fields = $r->field( '260' );
        foreach my $field ( @fields ) {
                my $PD = $field->subfield('c');
                my $four260 = substr( $PD, 0, 4);
                print FOURS "\\$four260\n";
        }                     


My result was something like:

Dave,Ayod\2003
Paòt,Kaâs\2002
Baks,Dasa\2003
,Viâs\2002

Problem 1: As you can see, I don't really want the first four characters, I 
want the first four SEARCHABLE characters.  How can I tell MARC Record to give 
me the first four characters, excluding diacritics?

Problem 2:  In these examples 260 $c works OK, but I could get a cleaner result 
by accessing the date from the fixed field (008 07-10).  How would I do that?  
I was looking in the tutorial, but couldn't seem to find anything that seemed 
to help.  If I'm missing something there please point it up.

 Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

 
JJ



**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of the 
Queens Library.**

Jane Jacobs
Asst. Coord., Catalog Division
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432

tel.: (718) 990-0804
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FAX. (718) 990-8566