# Format Credits

This function is used to adjust the Involved People or Musician Credits field. Typically this function would be used after manually copying and pasting the information from a web based source. Note that the function is not required after importing Involved People or Musician Credits from Discogs or MusicBrainz.

An initial formatting of Correct implies that the data is formatted correctly and all that is required is sorting. Remember that the Involved People and Musician Credits fields are formatted as multiple lines of:

> role=person{,person}...

An initial formatting of Credits implies that the data initially contains credits followed by a separator followed by people on each row. Note that the credits and people sections of the string may contain multiple values separated by commas.

An initial formatting of People implies that the data initially contains people followed by a separator followed by credits on each row. Note that the people and credits sections of the string may contain multiple values separated by commas.

The sort field specifies what you would like sorted while formatting. Sorting by Credits will effectively sort each row. Sorting by People will sort the people associated with each credit. Sorting by Both will sort everything.

The people/credits separator field is required unless the initial formatting field is set to Correct. The field contains the pattern used to separate the left and right portions of each row. Note that spaces are significant. Note also that spaces are eliminated in the final field wherever required. That means if one or more spaces followed by a '-' followed by one or more spaces is the actual delimiter, specifying the field as '-' will work as expected. However if the actual delimiter is a minimum of three spaces then three spaces must be specified in the field. The separator string may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences.

The source item separator field contains the sequence used to separate multiple items on either side of the people and credits portions of each row. The value is defaulted to ',' when the field is empty. Note that spaces are significant.

The result separator field contains the sequence used to separate people in the result string. The value is defaulted to ',' when the field is empty. Note that spaces are significant.

You can elect to merge or not merge names with the same credit to a single item when updating the fields.

When initial formatting is Correct and the sort field is None, formatting will merely remove extra rows, unnecessary whitespace and possibly change the merging of names.

You can override certain settings by enabling Runtime override. When enabled, the IPMC Runtime Override named variable will be analyzed. The following codes are supported (case insensitive):

> M
>   the source of the statement will be changed to Musician Credits
> I
>   the source of the statement will be changed to Involved People
> 0
>   disables Merge Names
> 1
>   enables Merge Names
> N
>   sets the sort to None
> C
>   sets the sort to Credits
> P
>   sets the sort to People
> B
>   sets the sort to Both