Replace text of any characters between parentheses with a space

[bogs]

OK: pause for 'evil' Richmond question:

<Pauses...> did you try running it? Hee hee.

[richmond62]

"Not tonight, Josephine."

Currently up to my eyeballs in writing a set of rules for a sequence of 18 inter-related
abstract table games that I am in the middle of negotiating a contract about with a
games manufacturing company.
-

-
I wonder if anyone LIKES lawyers?

[jacque]

Replace text of any characters between parentheses with a space

OK: pause for 'evil' Richmond question:

Is that to be interpreted that EACH character between parentheses MUST be REPLACED with a SPACE?
(= as many SPACES as their are characters between parentheses.)

Or

that ALL characters between parentheses MUST be REPLACED with a SPACE?
(=1 SPACE regardless of length of string between parentheses.)

In the original list post the goal was to remove everything between parentheses as well as the parentheses themselves, and replace the whole thing with a single space.

[richmond62]

Thanks for the clarification.

[FourthWorld]

Currently up to my eyeballs in writing a set of rules for a sequence of 18 inter-related
abstract table games that I am in the middle of negotiating a contract about with a
games manufacturing company.

Please keep us posted when it launches.

[bogs]

This is pretty late in coming, I had originally sent it as a pm but just found out it was never opened.

Ok, I may not be seeing the entire thread.
out

Hey man, I was only kidding around, sorry if I offended you somehow, but I never meant for you to quit the thread

Again, my humblest apologies.

[dunbarx]

Mentioned this earlier. Still wondering why this does not work:

Code: Select all

  filter yourText without "(" &  "*" & ")" 

I have used the "filter" command here and there for ages, but seem to have forgotten how it works.

Craig

[stam]

Mentioned this earlier. Still wondering why this does not work:

Code: Select all

  filter yourText without "(" &  "*" & ")" 

I have used the "filter" command here and there for ages, but seem to have forgotten how it works.

Craig

Hi Craig - it kinda works... if you have a line that starts and ends with a parenthesis, it will remove that line. But it does not remove this from part of a line... The dictionary definition of filter suggests you can't filter chars, only lines from a text container:

Code: Select all

filter [{lines | items | keys | elements} of] <filterSource>... 

Jacque's suggestion works best and replaces fragments of text anywhere in the container...:

Code: Select all

put replacetext(fld 1,"\(.*?\)",space) into tNewText

If you want to stick with filter, i guess you could replace "(" with CR & "(" and ")" with ")" & CR and then run filter, but that seems like a waste of effort... I mean this works, but you'll need at least 2 extra lines:

Code: Select all

replace "(" with CR & "(" in field 1
replace ")" with ")" & CR in field 1
filter field 1 without "(" &  "*" & ")"

Stam

[dunbarx]

Stam.

Thanks for that. Always read the dictionary. Always read the dictionary...

I went over other stacks where I had used "filter", and found that I was never going down to the character level.

Glad that I at least had the right idea. I find filter more accessible than any of the regex-based gadgets, because I can "see" wildcards more easily.

The CR kludge is, for me, actually a nice one. I do this sort of manhandling of a body of text now and then, and see it as perfectly legit: re-format text to comply with the limitations of a command or function, run it, and restore.. In this kludge, restoring means doing something like inserting a little-used character, like "|", and:

Code: Select all

on mouseup
     get fld "x"
     replace "(" with "|" & CR & "(" in it
     replace ")" with ")" & CR in it
     filter it without "(" &  "*" & ")"
     replace "|" & return with "" in it
     put it into fld "x"
   end mouseup

This restores the original text as written. There are better choices for the special character, perhaps numToChar(240)

Craig