how to find special characters present in a String in FileMaker - filemaker

When a string has special characters then how to find out in FileMaker scripting.
For example we have ABC$XYZ then in scripting we need to find only charaters like A to Z or a to z or 0 to 1 exist or any other characters also exist

The Filter function combined with the Length function should work for finding out if other characters exist, for example:
Let ( [
originalString = "ABC$XYZ";
originalStringLength = Length ( originalString );
// all characters would need to be listed below
filterSet = "abcd...zABCD...Z012...9";
filteredString = Filter ( originalString ; filterSet );
filteredStringLength = Length ( filteredString )
] ;
If ( filteredStringLength = originalStringLength ;
"No special characters." ;
"Special characters." )
)
To find out what those characters are, however, you may need to use the Substitute function.
Additional reading:
Filter Function: http://www.filemaker.com/12help/html/func_ref3.33.52.html
Substitute Function: http://www.filemaker.com/12help/html/func_ref3.33.88.html#1031764

Related

Matlab: how to convert character array or string into a formatted output OR parse a string

Could someone please tell me how to convert character array into a formatted output using Matlab?
I am expecting data like this:
CHAR (1 x 29) : 0.050822999 3.141592979 ; (1)
OR
CELL (1 x 1) or string: '0.050822999 3.141592979 ; (1)'
I am looking for output like this:
d1 = 0.050822999; %double
d2 = 3.141592979; %double
index = 1; % integer
I tried transposing and then using str2num(Str'); but, it's returning me 0x 0 double.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
DK
you can use regexp to parse the string
c = { '0.050822999 3.141592979 ; (1)' };
p = regexp( c{1}, '^(\d+\.\d+)\s(\d+\.\d+)\s*;\s*\((\d+)\)$', 'tokens', 'once' ); %//parse the input string
numbers = str2mat(p); %// convert extracted strings to numerical values
Example result
ans =
0.050822999
3.141592979
1
Explaining the regexp pattern:
^ - pattern starts at the beginning of the input string
(\d+\.\d+) - parentheses ('()') enclosing this sub-pattern indicates it as a single token
\d+ matches one or more digits, then expecting \. a dot (notice the \, since . alone in regexp acts as a wildcard) and after the dot \d+ one or more digits are expected.
This token should correspond to the first number, e.g., 0.050822999
\s expecting a single space
(\d+\.\d+) - again, expecting another decimal fraction as the second token.
\s* - expecting white space (zero or more).
; - capture the ; in the expression, but not as a token.
\s+ - expecting white space (zero or more).
\( - expecting an open parenthesis, note the \ since parentheses in regexp are used to denote tokens.
(\d+) - expecting one or more digits as the third token, only integer numbers are expected here. no decimal point.
\) - expecting a closing parenthesis.
$ - pattern should reach the end of the input string.
You can use something like this (if I understood you correctly)
function str_dump(var)
info = whos;
disp([info.class ' ' mat2str(info.size) ' : ' var]);
end
This just shows information about the string. If you want to parse it and convert to another Matlab's structure, you have to explain it more carefully.
%// Input
a = [0.050822999 3.141592979];
n = 1;
%// Output
str = [num2str(a,'%0.9f ') ' ; (' num2str(n) ')']
Result:
str =
0.050822999 3.141592979 ; (1)

Deleting all special characters from a string in progress 4GL

How can I delete all special characters from a string in Progress 4GL?
I guess this depends on your definition of special characters.
You can remove ANY character with REPLACE. Simply set the to-string part of replace to blank ("").
Syntax:
REPLACE ( source-string , from-string , to-string )
Example:
DEFINE VARIABLE cOldString AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE cNewString AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
cOldString = "ABC123AACCC".
cNewString = REPLACE(cOldString, "A", "").
DISPLAY cNewString FORMAT "x(10)".
You can use REPLACE to remove a complete matching string. For example:
REPLACE("This is a text with HTML entity &", "&", "").
Handling "special characters" can be done in a number of ways. If you mean special "ASCII" characters like linefeed, bell and so on you can use REPLACE together with the CHR function.
Basic syntax (you could add some information about code pages as well but that's rarely needed) :
CHR( expression )
expression: An expression that yields an integer value that you want to convert to a character value. (ASCII numberic value).
So if you want to remove all Swedish letter Ö:s (ASCII 214) from a text you could do:
REPLACE("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÅÄÖ", "Ö", "").
or
REPLACE("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÅÄÖ", CHR(214), "").
Putting this together you could build an array of unwanted characters and remove all those in the string. For example:
FUNCTION cleanString RETURNS CHARACTER (INPUT pcString AS CHARACTER):
DEFINE VARIABLE iUnwanted AS INTEGER NO-UNDO EXTENT 3.
DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
/* Remove all capital Swedish letters ÅÄÖ */
iUnwanted[1] = 197.
iUnwanted[2] = 196.
iUnwanted[3] = 214.
DO i = 1 TO EXTENT(iUnwanted):
IF iUnwanted[i] <> 0 THEN DO:
pcString = REPLACE(pcString, CHR(iUnwanted[i]), "").
END.
END.
RETURN pcString.
END.
DEFINE VARIABLE cString AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO INIT "AANÅÅÖÖBBCVCÄÄ".
DISPLAY cleanString(cString) FORMAT "x(10)".
Other functions that could be useful to look into:
SUBSTRING: Returns a part of a string. Can be used to modify it as well.
ASC: Like CHR but the other way around - displays ASCII value from a character).
INDEX: Returns the position of a character in a string.
R-INDEX: Like INDEX but searches right to left.
STRING: Converts a value of any data type into a character value.
This function will replace chars according to the current collation.
function Dia2Plain returns character (input icTxt as character):
define variable ocTxt as character no-undo.
define variable i as integer no-undo.
define variable iAsc as integer no-undo.
define variable cDia as character no-undo.
define variable cPlain as character no-undo.
assign ocTxt = icTxt.
repeat i = 1 to length(ocTxt):
assign cDia = substring(ocTxt,i,1)
cPlain = "".
if asc(cDia) > 127
then do:
repeat iAsc = 65 to 90: /* A..Z */
if compare(cDia, "eq" , chr(iAsc), "case-sensitive")
then assign cPlain = chr(iAsc).
end.
repeat iAsc = 97 to 122: /* a..z */
if compare(cDia, "eq" , chr(iAsc), "case-sensitive")
then assign cPlain = chr(iAsc).
end.
if cPlain <> ""
then assign substring(ocTxt,i,1) = cPlain.
end.
end.
return ocTxt.
end.
/* testing */
def var c as char init "ÄëÉÖìÇ".
disp c Dia2Plain(c).
def var i as int.
def var d as char.
repeat i = 128 to 256:
assign c = chr(i) d = Dia2Plain(chr(i)).
if asc(c) <> asc(d) then disp i c d.
end.
This function will remove anything that is not a letter or number (adapt it as you wish).
/* remove any characters that are not numbers or letters */
FUNCTION alphanumeric RETURN CHARACTER
(lch_string AS CHARACTER).
DEFINE VARIABLE lch_newstring AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DO i = 1 TO LENGTH(lch_string):
/* check to see if this is a number or letter */
IF (ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) GE ASC("1")
AND ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) LE ASC("9"))
OR (ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) GE ASC("A")
AND ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) LE ASC("Z"))
OR (ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) GE ASC("a")
AND ASC(SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1)) LE ASC("z"))
THEN
/* only keep it if it is a number or letter */
lch_newstring = lch_newstring + SUBSTRING(lch_string,i,1).
END.
RETURN lch_newstring.
END FUNCTION.
Or you can simply use regex
System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex:Replace("Say,Hi!", "[^a-zA-Z0-9]","")

Function that creates list of personalia

I have the function
fid = fopen(filename,'w');
if exist('fid')
check = true;
else
check = false;
end
for i=1:length(persons)
fprintf(fid, '%s\n',serialize_person(persons(i)));
end
end
Where serialize_person is
function [output] = serialize_person(person)
fprintf ( '<%s>#' , person.name ) ;
serialize_date ( person.date_of_birth ) ;
fprintf ( '#<%i>\n' , person.phone ) ;
end
Which takes is a personalia and writes out 'name.day.month.year.phonenumber'
Firstly I need to make this come out as a single string of text in 'output' for it to(I assume)work in the first function, how would I go about this?
Secondly, the first function takes is a filename and a cell of persons. I want it to come out on a textfile with the name 'filename' with one personalia per line.
Yesterday I had it working up to the for loop, but somehow I cant get beyond the first line today without hitting an error message.
Could you give me some advice here, I don't know whats wrong.
To write output to a character array rather than the console, use sprintf. Also, to join the strings with a '.' between strings, try strjoin with a delimiter set:
function [output] = serialize_person(person)
delim = '.';
output = strjoin(sprintf ( '<%s>#' , person.name ), ...
serialize_date ( person.date_of_birth ), ...
sprintf ( '#<%i>\n' , person.phone ), delim);
end
Modify serialize_date similarly.

How to determine whether a string represents an integer?

I need to determine if a string contains just an integer. The built-in function isinteger is not working.
To avoid loops I'd like to apply this task on cell arrays of strings.
For example:
Q = { 'qf5' ; '4' ; 'true' ; 'false' ; '4.00' ; '4E0' ; '4e0' ; '657' };
desired result:
integers = 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
For a single string I figured out an ugly workaround, but I can't imagine that this is the only possible way, and also it requires a loop to use it on cell arrays:
myString = '4';
integer = uint64( str2double( myString ) );
newString = int2str( integer );
isStringInteger = strcmp(newString,myString);
Which essential function am I missing?
You can do it with regexp; and to avoid the loop you use cellfun:
~cellfun('isempty', regexp(Q, '^-?\d+$'))
This considers an "integer" as a string of digits, possibly with one minus sign at the beginning.
Note that cellfun with the builtin function 'isempty' is very fast.
Well, the string is not an integer, therefore the question as such is not correct. What you want to check is whether the string is a representation of an integer. The isinteger function is also not what you want, because it does not check whether the actual content of a numeric variable is an integer, but whether the data type is an integer type.
As far as I can tell, there is no built-in way to check whether a string represents an integer. One approach to implement such a check would be to see whether all the characters in the string represent digits:
isintstr = all(myString >= '0') && all(myString <= '9')
This code takes advantage of the fact that the decimal digits are encoded in sequence in ASCII and Unicode.
To allow for leading and trailing white space, use
isintstr = all(strtrim(myString) >= '0') && all(strtrim(myString) <= '9')

How do I convert strings to title case in OpenEdge ABL / Progress 4GL?

How do I convert a string to title case in OpenEdge ABL (aka Progress 4GL)?
I know I can get upper case with CAPS(), and lower case with LC(), but I can't find the title case (sometimes called proper case) function.
Examples:
Input Output
------------ ------------
hello world! Hello World!
HELLO WORLD! Hello World!
function titleWord returns character ( input inString as character ):
return caps( substring( inString, 1, 1 )) + lc( substring( inString, 2 )).
end.
function titleCase returns character ( input inString as character ):
define variable i as integer no-undo.
define variable n as integer no-undo.
define variable outString as character no-undo.
n = num-entries( inString, " " ).
do i = 1 to n:
outString =
outString +
( if i > 1 and i <= n then " " else "" ) +
titleWord( entry( i, inString, " " ))
.
end.
return outString.
end.
display
titleCase( "the quick brown fox JUMPED over the lazy dog!" ) format "x(60)"
.
I think the order of one of those statements above is incorrect -
You'll be adding an extra " " at the beginning of the string! Also need to change the <= to < or you'll be tacking an extra " " into your return string.
It should be:
n = num-entries( inString, " " ).
do i = 1 to n:
outString =
outString +
titleWord( entry( i, inString, " " )) +
( if i < n then " " else "" ) +
.
end.
At least that's what I -think- it should be...
-Me
I was playing around with this a while back, and besides a solution similar to Tom's, I came up with two variations.
One of the problems I had was that not all words are separated by space, such as Run-Time and Read/Write, so I wrote this version to use any non-alphabetic characters as separators.
I also wanted to count diacritics and accented characters as alphabetic, so it became a little complicated. To solve the problem I create two versions of the title, one upper and one lower case. Where the two strings are the same, it's a non-alphabetic character, where they are different, it's alphabetical. Titles are usually very short, so this method is not as inefficient as might seem at first.
FUNCTION TitleCase2 RETURNS CHARACTER
( pcText AS CHARACTER ) :
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose: Converts a string to Title Case.
Notes: This version takes all non-alphabetic characters as word seperators
at the expense of a little speed. This affects things like
D'Arby vs D'arby or Week-End vs Week-end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
DEFINE VARIABLE cUText AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO CASE-SENSITIVE.
DEFINE VARIABLE cLText AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO CASE-SENSITIVE.
DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE lFound AS LOGICAL NO-UNDO INITIAL TRUE.
cUText = CAPS(pcText).
cLText = LC(pcText).
DO i = 1 TO LENGTH(pcText):
IF (SUBSTRING(cUText, i, 1)) <> (SUBSTRING(cLText, i, 1)) THEN
DO:
IF lFound THEN
DO:
SUBSTRING(cLText, i, 1) = (SUBSTRING(cUText, i, 1)).
lFound = FALSE.
END.
END.
ELSE lFound = TRUE.
END.
RETURN cLText.
END FUNCTION.
Another issue is that title case is supposed to be language specific, i.e. verbs and nouns are treated differently to prepositions and conjunctions. These are some possible rules for title case:
First and last word always get capitalized
Capitalize all nouns, verbs (including "is" and other forms of "to
be"), adverbs (including "than" and "when"), adjectives (including
"this" and "that"), and pronouns (including "its").
Capitalize prepositions that are part of a verb phrase.
Lowercase articles (a, an, the).
Lowercase coordinate conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or).
Lowercase prepositions of four or fewer letters.
Lowercase "to" in an infinitive phrase.
Capitalize the second word in compound words if it is a noun or
proper adjective or the words have equal weight (Cross-Reference,
Pre-Microsoft Software, Read/Write Access, Run-Time). Lowercase the
second word if it is another part of speech or a participle
modifying the first word (How-to, Take-off).
I could of course not code all this without teaching the computer English, so I created this version as a simple if crude compromise; it works in most cases, but there are exceptions.
FUNCTION TitleCaseE RETURNS CHARACTER
( pcText AS CHARACTER ) :
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose: Converts an English string to Title Case.
Notes:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE cWord AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE lFound AS LOGICAL NO-UNDO INITIAL TRUE.
DEFINE VARIABLE iLast AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE cSmallWords AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO
INITIAL "and,but,or,for,nor,the,a,an,to,amid,anti,as,at,but,by,down,from,in" +
",into,like,near,of,off,on,onto,over,per,than,to,up,upon,via,with".
pcText = REPLACE(REPLACE(LC(pcText),"-"," - "),"/"," / ").
iLast = NUM-ENTRIES(pcText, " ").
DO i = 1 TO iLast:
cWord = ENTRY(i, pcText, " ").
IF LENGTH(cWord) > 0 THEN
IF i = 1 OR i = iLast OR LOOKUP(cWord, cSmallWords) = 0 THEN
ENTRY(i, pcText, " ") = CAPS(SUBSTRING(cWord, 1, 1)) + LC(SUBSTRING(cWord, 2)).
END.
RETURN REPLACE(REPLACE(pcText," - ","-")," / ","/").
END FUNCTION.
I have to mention that Tom's solution is very much faster than both of mine. Depending on what you need, you may find that the speed is not that important, since you're unlikely to use this in large data crunching processes or with long strings, but I wouldn't ignore it. Make sure that your needs justify the performance loss.