Including a number in a text item delimiter

dsr · April 17, 2007, 4:00pm

I have a text document that I’d like to delimit by "1 - " where the number is a random number followed by a space, a hyphen, and then another space.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Dan

StefanK · April 17, 2007, 4:09pm

Hi Dan,

text item delimiters can contain every character which class is one of the text classes

BLUEFROG · April 17, 2007, 4:22pm

dsr:

You could do it this way:


set AppleScript's text item delimiters to (((random number from 1 to 10 as integer) & " -") as Unicode text)

Bear in mind that if you apply this to a block of text only one random number will apply unless you want to loop through items.


set oldTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters

set pretendTextBlock to "This is a paragraph one.
This is paragraph two.
this is paragraph three.
This is paragraph four."

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to (((random number from 1 to 10 as integer) & " - ") as Unicode text)
set pretendTextBlock to (every paragraph of pretendTextBlock) as Unicode text

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldTID

pretendTextBlock
-- returns: "This is a paragraph one.4 - This is paragraph two.4 - this is paragraph three.4 - This is paragraph four."

I’m curious as to what you’d want to delimit with this.

Regards,
Jim Neumann
BLUEFROG

dsr · April 17, 2007, 4:29pm

Stefan-

I don’t quite follow your post.

BLUEFROG-

I knew I’d word that slightly wrong.

The number isn’t actually random per se. It’s a different number at each instance ie: "1 - "; "2 - "; etc. So I need to delimit by (number & " - ").

I’m searching through a text file archive of cds. Each new cd entry begins with "number - " and then has listings of the contents.

Thank you both for the quick reply.

I have noticed that the numbers are no longer numbers once they’re read from the file. That would be why I can’t delimit simply with

set applescript's text item delimiters to {(number) & " -" }

Vincent · April 17, 2007, 4:49pm

Supposing your source text looks like ‘source’:

set source to "1 - Foo
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
2 - Bar
Track 1
Track 2
3 - Foobar
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6"
set temp to do shell script "echo " & (quoted form of source) & " | perl -pe 's/^\\d+ - //;s/\\d+ - /#¢#/g'"
set {old_delim, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, "#¢#"}
set temp to text items of temp
set {AppleScript's text item delimiters, old_delim} to {old_delim, missing value}
return temp

dsr · April 17, 2007, 4:54pm

Actually, this is what the source text looks like:

1 - Jobs 2006_DVD51 -29425664 / 0
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramBol.AFM (MacWrite document)
2/7/87 12/11/87 15195 TEXT MACA
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramBolIta.AFM (MacWrite document)
8/12/87 12/11/87 15528 TEXT MACA
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramLig.AFM (MacWrite document)
11/24/87 12/11/87 15303 TEXT MACA
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramLigIta.AFM (MacWrite document)
8/12/87 12/11/87 15435 TEXT MACA
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramBol (Downloadable font)
2/7/87 12/11/87 45495 LWFN ASPF
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramBolIta (Downloadable font)
7/10/87 12/11/87 47108 LWFN ASPF
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramLig (Downloadable font)
11/24/87 12/11/87 47033 LWFN ASPF
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramLigIta (Downloadable font)
7/10/87 12/11/87 45200 LWFN ASPF
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:Garamond Bitmapped Fonts (Font Suitcase)
11/24/87 7/12/96 110061 FFIL DMOV
Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:HammerFat:HammeFat (Downloadable font)
4/14/92 4/14/92 16537 LWFN ACp1

The next entry would begin just like 1 - Jobs… above but with “2 - (whatever)”

dsr · April 17, 2007, 6:43pm

I think I’m going to be able to get what I need with grep:

set theVariable to do shell script "grep -o '[[:digit:]]*[[:space:]][-][[:space:]]'"

Then I should be able to change the text after setting it to a variable, right?

Vincent · April 17, 2007, 7:12pm

dsr:

I think I’m going to be able to get what I need with grep:
set theVariable to do shell script "grep -o '[[:digit:]]*[[:space:]][-][[:space:]]'"
Then I should be able to change the text after setting it to a variable, right?

If you just want to filter out everything buth the album titles then this should be quite okay for a start.

dsr · April 17, 2007, 7:19pm

I was thinking of taking the results of the grep search, replacing them with a string of characters I’m sure isn’t in the text document, and then delimiting by that.

Thank you all for your help by the way.

Dan

Vincent · April 17, 2007, 8:04pm

Well, that’s just what my last script snippet was doing. :P:cool:


--just changed your sample text to this for testing purposes:
set source to "1 - Jobs 2006_DVD51    -29425664 / 0
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramBol.AFM    (MacWrite document)
        2/7/87    12/11/87    15195    TEXT    MACA
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramBolIta.AFM    (MacWrite document)
        8/12/87    12/11/87    15528    TEXT    MACA
2 - Jobs 2006_DVD51    -29425664 / 0
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramLig.AFM    (MacWrite document)
        11/24/87    12/11/87    15303    TEXT    MACA
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:AFM Files:GaramLigIta.AFM    (MacWrite document)
        8/12/87    12/11/87    15435    TEXT    MACA
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramBol    (Downloadable font)
        2/7/87    12/11/87    45495    LWFN    ASPF
3 - Jobs 2006_DVD51    -29425664 / 0
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramBolIta    (Downloadable font)
        7/10/87    12/11/87    47108    LWFN    ASPF
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramLig    (Downloadable font)
        11/24/87    12/11/87    47033    LWFN    ASPF
4 - Jobs 2006_DVD51    -29425664 / 0
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:GaramLigIta    (Downloadable font)
        7/10/87    12/11/87    45200    LWFN    ASPF
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:Garamond:Garamond Bitmapped Fonts    (Font Suitcase)
        11/24/87    7/12/96    110061    FFIL    DMOV
    Jobs 2006_DVD51:016261 Hull Tractor Pull:Fonts:HammerFat:HammeFat    (Downloadable font)
        4/14/92    4/14/92    16537    LWFN    ACp1"

set temp to do shell script "echo " & (quoted form of source) & " | perl -pe 's/\\d+ - /#¢#/g'"
set {old_delim, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, "#¢#"}
set temp to items 2 thru -1 of text items of temp
set {AppleScript's text item delimiters, old_delim} to {old_delim, missing value}
return temp

dsr · April 17, 2007, 8:51pm

I thought it kinda’ looked like that, but the Perl (that is Perl right?) script threw me…

I will put “…with mucho help from Vincent” at the top of the finished sript.

Vincent · April 17, 2007, 9:14pm

Oh, there’s no need for a credit We’re here to help

dsr · April 17, 2007, 9:18pm

It is much appreciated.