replace non-ascii characters in text

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Is it possible to replace non-ascii characters in a string, or at least remove them?

Thanks,

gecko

#2

Hi,

is this sufficient?


set a to "123ºªÆ’ ΩabcÅ“@∆º!$%&"
do shell script "echo " & quoted form of a & " | tr -cd '[:print:]'"
--> 123abc@!$%&
#3

I don’t know anything about UNIX, but is there a code snippet to convert just the smart/curly quotes and replace them with the foot or inch marks. - If not I will use this script above to just remove them, which does work well.

Thanks,
Jeff

#4

Hello,

the AppleScript way:

on substitute(s, r, t)
	set s to s as list
	set r to r as list
	set t to t as text
	set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
	repeat with i from 1 to count s
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to s's item i
		set t to t's text items
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to r's item i
		set t to t as text
	end repeat
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
	return t
end substitute

set myText to "I'd like to surround one of the fields with straight quotes rather than smart quotes. I couldn't see anything in the "online help" about this.) "
set myText to substitute({""", """, "˜", "'"}, {"\"", "\"", "'", "'"}, myText)

or…

set myText to "I'd like to surround one of the fields with straight quotes rather than smart quotes. I couldn't see anything in the "online help" about this.) "
do shell script "awk '{gsub(/("|")/,\"\\042\"); gsub(/(˜|')/,\"\\047\"); print}' <<< " & quoted form of myText

or if you’re dealing with a file…

set p2file to "/Posix/path/to/myFile.txt"
do shell script "awk '{gsub(/("|")/,\"\\042\"); gsub(/(˜|')/,\"\\047\"); print}' < " & quoted form of p2file
#5

I owe you one! You even gave me option! Many thanks.

-Jeff

#6

I tried these two codes samples to delete invisible upside down ? character but i get:

→ error “sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `‘’
sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file” number 2

#7

Did you consider the second single quote right before the ending double quote?