I'm working on a solution to address this parsing issue inside se_toolkit -- I'm adding a"StrPos" class:
StrPos(strcol,"string"[,{START | END | BEFORE | AFTER}])
StrIPos(strcol,"string"[,{START | END | BEFORE | AFTER}])
With it you could use [this would be more legible with a fixed-width font]:
event String - 200 N
$stop1 StrPos(event," issued ",BEFORE) - 4 N
$start2 StrPos(event," issued ",AFTER) - 4 N
$stop2 StrPos(event," expiring ",BEFORE) - 4 N
$start3 StrPos(event," expiring ",AFTER) - 4 N
$stop3 StrPos(event," by ",BEFORE) - 4 N
event_class SubStr(event,1,$top1) - 80 N
event_issued SubStr(event,$start2,$stop2) - 80 N
event_expires SubStr(event,$start3,$stop3) - 80 N
Use the "Contact Author" page from ArcScripts to send me your contact info, ArcSDE release,and platform, and I'll get you a "setk93b41" snapshot with the StrPos class (setk100 will includethis at general release). - V