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Topic
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I am working on a script to cleanup .rtf message formatting and cannot figure out why this regsub statement is only replacing 1 occurance of the string when the condition exists multiple times. I am trying to find the {xxxx } where xxxx can be anything and insert a space between xxxx and }. This is a pain because the backslash and curly brace are part of the text but also affect the syntax for the regexp. Example:
set text “DATE}{\fs24 }{\fs24 FIRST}{\fs24 }{\fs24 SEEN:}”
echo $text
regsub -all — {({B.*)(s})} $text {1 2} text
echo $text
Result:
DATE}{fs24 }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24 }{fs24 SEEN:}
DATE}{fs24 }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24 }{fs24 SEEN:}
Any ideas would be helpful because I’ve tried every combination I can think of.
Thanks!!
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Replies
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One problem is that .* is greedy. It will match the largest possible string that matches the pattern. What about this?
Code:
regsub -all {({\.{4} )(})} $text {1 2} text
It captures a { follwed by a followed by 4 characters followed by a space. then it captures the closing } and puts them together with a space between them.
Result:
Code:
hcitcl>regsub -all {({\.{4} )(})} $text {1 2} text2
2
hcitcl>puts $text
DATE}{fs24 }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24 }{fs24 SEEN:}
hcitcl>puts $text2
DATE}{fs24 }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24 }{fs24 SEEN:}
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The ‘*’ being ‘greedy’ (as mentioned) is exactly what the issue is that you are having. The way you have it written, it will only replace the LAST occurence in your test data, due to the greedy factor. adding the ? after the * makes the expression non-greedy, and works as you would want.
(the letter ‘z’ is in there as it is easier to see than a space)
set text “{DATE}{\fs24 }{\fs24 FIRST}{\fs24 }{\fs24 SEEN:}{\fs24 }{\fs24 }”
echo $text
regsub -all — {({B.*?)(s})} $text {1z2} text
echo $text
{DATE}{fs24 }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24 }{fs24 SEEN:}{fs24 }{fs24 }
{DATE}{fs24z }{fs24 FIRST}{fs24z }{fs24 SEEN:}{fs24z }{fs24z }
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Mike, I used your code but modified slightly because I don’t want to insert an extra space after the formatting characters if it already exists. So the expression captures a { follwed by a backslash followed by any number of non-space characters followed by a space. Then it captures the closing } and puts them together with a space between them.
Example:
hcitcl>echo $text
DURATION}{fs24 }{fs24 OF}{fs24 }{fs24 SERVICE:}
hcitcl>regsub -all — {({BS*?s)(})} $text {1 2} text
1
hcitcl>echo $text
DURATION}{fs24 }{fs24 OF}{fs24 }{fs24 SERVICE:}
Thanks for the help!!
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I may be simplifying this a bit much, but all you are wanting to do is place a space in front of the “}” unless a space is already there correct? Example: {TOM}{WAS }{HERE}
Should become: {TOM }{WAS }{HERE }
Is this what you are wanting? If so, then just have two regsubs.
The first: regsub -all — ” }” $text “}” text
The second: regsub -all — “}” $text ” }” text
This should give you what you want without having to worry about the backslashes…
Then again…I may be way off in understanding what you are looking for.
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