Page 1 of 1
Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 6:11 pm
by ittarter
Hi guys!
I have a text of tab-delimited items. In some of those items, there are alternate sub-items (separated by slash). I want to get a text where only one sub-item per tab-delimited item is selected.
Sample:
Code: Select all
put "326 I'm OK Je vais bien Aussi Merci Savoir Grand It is/Il est/Elle est Savoir/Connaître" into tWordList
set the itemdel to tab
put 0 into tItemNumber
repeat for each item tItem in tWordList
add 1 to tItemNumber
if tItem contains "/" then
set the itemdel to "/"
put any item of tItem into tSelected
put tSelected into item tItemNumber of tWordList
set the itemdel to tab
end if
end repeat
Why isn't my code working, or is there a better way to do this?
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 6:43 pm
by shaosean
Code: Select all
put "326 I'm OK Je vais bien Aussi Merci Savoir Grand It is/Il est/Elle est Savoir/Connaître" into tWordList
set the itemdel to tab
put 0 into tItemNumber
repeat for each item tItem in tWordList
add 1 to tItemNumber
if tItem contains "/" then
set the itemdel to "/"
put any item of tItem into tSelected
set the itemdel to tab // this line moved
put tSelected into item tItemNumber of tWordList
end if
end repeat
put tWordList
looks like you were switching back to the TAB itemDelimiter too late..
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:07 pm
by dunbarx
Hi.
In your original text, I only see one item. It is hard to distinguish tabs from spaces, which makes it difficult to "read" your text, or to parse it visually.
Anyway, try this. Much depends on getting around the LC restriction (ptui) of not being able to access a "large" chunk inside a "small" one. Make a button and a field. In the button script.
Code: Select all
on mouseUp
put "A,B,C,D/d/dd,E,F/f/ff/fff,G,H," into tWordList
set the itemDel to comma ---not really required here, eh?
repeat with y = 1 to the number of items in tWordList
put item y of tWordList into line y of temp
end repeat
set the itemDel to "/"
repeat with y = 1 to the number of lines of temp
if line y of temp contains "/" then
put item 2 to 100 of line y of temp into foo
put item 1 of line y of temp & "/" & any item of foo into line y of temp
end if
end repeat
put temp into fld 1
end mouseUp
Click rapidly and watch the field.
Now this is verbose, though not fully of its own fault (see spitting above) and old-fashioned. It begs for an array. How are you with arrays? They cut through that spitting thing.
Craig
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 9:53 am
by ittarter
Thanks, shaosean! You are right
It still has small hiccups on the last item of a line sometimes, but it's better.
I'm using tab delimited because I'm pulling data from a spreadsheet and I don't want to use a character like comma or slash because sometimes there are commas and slashes in the data. I know that visually it's a pain in the ass.
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 9:56 am
by ittarter
dunbarx wrote:
Now this is verbose, though not fully of its own fault (see spitting above) and old-fashioned. It begs for an array. How are you with arrays? They cut through that spitting thing.
Hi Craig
I've never used an array. I know they're really useful and important but also difficult to understand for non-mathematic types. I'd love to start using them but don't really know where to start.
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:10 pm
by [-hh]
Another option could be to use the TWO delimiters that are available
the linedelimiter and the itemdelimiter.
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 1:28 pm
by MaxV
ittarter wrote:dunbarx wrote:
I've never used an array. I know they're really useful and important but also difficult to understand for non-mathematic types. I'd love to start using them but don't really know where to start.
You can read here:
http://livecode.wikia.com/wiki/Arrays
Re: Dealing with sub-items within items
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 3:04 pm
by dunbarx
Try this handler in a button:
Code: Select all
on mouseUp
repeat 20
put any word of "cat dog flea mouse pony hafnium" & return after temp
end repeat
breakPoint
repeat for each line tLine in temp
add 1 to wordCount[tLine]
end repeat
combine wordCount by return and comma
answer wordCount
end mouseUp
When the handler stops, open the variable "temp" in an external window so you can see each line in turn. Step through and watch the array build in the debugger.
An array variable is a multi dimensional gadget that can hold many data associations, as opposed to just a single association. This gives one enormous power and compactness. The only downside is that the information within is not visible "in the clear" as I call it, unless that variable is deconstructed with the "combine" command, or, as you just did, observed in the debugger.
So the array variable "wordCount" holds pairs of data associations, as you have seen. Otherwise, a table, or perhaps several explicitly created variables would have to be set up to do the same job. No problem, just not as compact. You can go even farther with these, once you get going.
Craig