Lua: How to get string captures containing a specific substring? - string

In Lua, in want to get captures from a string containing a specific substring. E.g. in the string
test = "<item>foo</item> <item>bar</item>"
I want to get items containing "a", which in this case would be "bar". I tried this:
print(string.find(test, "<item>(.-a.-)</item>"))
but the result is:
1 34 foo</item> <item>bar
So .- is more greedy than I expected. What would be the correct pattern?


Try print(string.find(test, "<item>([^<]-a.-)</item>")).

Related

Replace a specific value in a string in python

I'm trying to replace a specific values in a long string. Is it possible to do this with replace function in python?
a snipit of the string is:
'rh':0, 'rp':0, 't':'b.nan','rh':1, 'rp':1, 't':'b.nan'
my snipit string should look like
'rh':0, 'rp':0, 't':b.nan,'rh':1, 'rp':1, 't':b.nan
i'm trying to replace the 'b.nan' to b.nan but it doesn't work.
The code i'm using:
a.replace("'b.nan'", "b.nan")

You can index strings like arrays:
string = "hello"
print(string[1])
this prints 'e'
You could try finding the index and then replacing it as such

String contains substring and substring not part of longer word (exact match)

I have captured the full text of a PDF-file in a string called pdfText.
Next I am looping through an array containing substrings to be found/searched for in the pdfText-string.
One of the substrings is Invoice.
Both pdfText and the substrings I am searching for are converted to lower case.
If at least one of the substrings are found in the pdfText, a boolean is set to true.
Now, I have an example where the pdtText contains '...Net amount to be invoiced...'. This is the only variant of 'invoice' in the text.
This of course returns true if I use
substring = "Invoice" ... pdfText.contains(substring.ToLower).
But in this case I need it to return false. I need to find only exact matches.
Another example, if the pdfText contains '...This is an invoice. Please pay....Net amount to be invoiced...' the boolean should be set to true because of the first invoice-match, but not the second invoiced-(non)match.
So what I am looking for is to find a substring Invoice in a string pdfText and make sure, that the substring is not part of a longer word invoiced, invoice-process etc.. Note, that invoice. should return True.
I believe this should be possible, but cannot wrap my head around it currently.
I might need to use regex?

This one uses the RegEx, with a slight change, proposed by #Mederic at https://stackoverflow.com/a/45587916/2326360
Use the build in UiPath activity Is Match, found under Programming->String.
Use it inside your loop, with the current settings.
The RegEx is: substring+"[^a-zA-Z]"
I have declared the following variables:

RegEx would be a good approach.
I only started RegEx not long ago but I think this would work fine.
RegEx:
(invoice)[^a-zA-Z]
Explanation:
() Creates a Capture Group
invoice looks for the match for invoice
[^a-zA-Z] Checks there are no characters from a-z or A-Z after
Example:
Sample: This was invoiced
Result: No Result
Sample: This is an invoice.
Result: Match on invoice. Capture group 1 = invoice
Implementation:
Dim m As Match = Regex.Match(pdfText.ToLower,"(invoice)[^a-zA-Z]")
' If successful, write the group.
If (m.Success) Then
Dim key As String = m.Groups(1).Value
Console.WriteLine(key)
End If

Find index of a specific character in a string then parse the string

I have strings which looks like this [NAME LASTNAME/NAME.LAST#emailaddress/123456678]. What I want to do is parse strings which have the same format as shown above so I only get NAME LASTNAME. My psuedo idea is find the index of the first instance of /, then strip from index 1 to that index of / we found. I want this as a VBScript.

Your way should work. You can also Split() your string on / and just grab the first element of the resulting array:
Const SOME_STRING = "John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678"
WScript.Echo Split(SOME_STRING, "/")(0)
Output:
John Doe
Edit, with respect to comments.
If your string contains the [, you can still Split(). Just use Mid() to grab the first element starting at character position 2:
Const SOME_STRING = "[John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678]"
WScript.Echo Mid(Split(SOME_STRING, "/")(0), 2)

Your idea is good here, you should also need to grab index for "[".This will make script robust and flexible here.Below code will always return strings placed between first occurrence of "[" and "/".
var = "[John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678]"
WScript.Echo Mid(var, (InStr(var,"[")+1),InStr(var,"/")-InStr(var,"[")-1)

Reading from a string using sscanf in Matlab

I'm trying to read a string in a specific format
RealSociedad
this is one example of string and what I want to extract is the name of the team.
I've tried something like this,
houseteam = sscanf(str, '%s');
but it does not work, why?

You can use regexprep like you did in your post above to do this for you. Even though your post says to use sscanf and from the comments in your post, you'd like to see this done using regexprep. You would have to do this using two nested regexprep calls, and you can retrieve the team name (i.e. RealSociedad) like so, given that str is in the format that you have provided:
str = 'RealSociedad';
houseteam = regexprep(regexprep(str, '^<a(.*)">', ''), '</a>$', '')
This looks very intimidating, but let's break this up. First, look at this statement:
regexprep(str, '^<a(.*)">', '')
How regexprep works is you specify the string you want to analyze, the pattern you are searching for, then what you want to replace this pattern with. The pattern we are looking for is:
^<a(.*)">
This says you are looking for patterns where the beginning of the string starts with a a<. After this, the (.*)"> is performing a greedy evaluation. This is saying that we want to find the longest sequence of characters until we reach the characters of ">. As such, what the regular expression will match is the following string:
<ahref="/teams/spain/real-sociedad-de-futbol/2028/">
We then replace this with a blank string. As such, the output of the first regexprep call will be this:
RealSociedad</a>
We want to get rid of the </a> string, and so we would make another regexprep call where we look for the </a> at the end of the string, then replace this with the blank string yet again. The pattern you are looking for is thus:
</a>$
The dollar sign ($) symbolizes that this pattern should appear at the end of the string. If we find such a pattern, we will replace it with the blank string. Therefore, what we get in the end is:
RealSociedad

Found a solution. So, %s stops when it finds a space.
str = regexprep(str, '<', ' <');
str = regexprep(str, '>', '> ');
houseteam = sscanf(str, '%*s %s %*s');
This will create a space between my desired string.

Lua: Search a specific string

Hi all tried all the string pattrens and library arguments but still stuck.
i want to get the name of the director from the following string i have tried the string.matcH but it matches the from the first character it finD from the string
the string is...
fixstrdirector = {id:39254,cast:[{id:15250,name:Hope Davis,character:Aunt Debra,order:5,cast_id:10,profile_path:/aIHF11Ss8P0A8JUfiWf8OHPVhOs.jpg},{id:53650,name:Anthony Mackie,character:Finn,order:3,cast_id:11,profile_path:/5VGGJ0Co8SC94iiedWb2o3C36T.jpg},{id:19034,name:Evangeline Lilly,character:Bailey Tallet,order:2,cast_id:12,profile_path:/oAOpJKgKEdW49jXrjvUcPcEQJb3.jpg},{id:6968,name:Hugh Jackman,character:Charlie Kenton,order:0,cast_id:13,profile_path:/wnl7esRbP3paALKn4bCr0k8qaFu.jpg},{id:79072,name:Kevin Durand,character:Ricky,order:4,cast_id:14,profile_path:/c95tTUjx5T0D0ROqTcINojpH6nB.jpg},{id:234479,name:Dakota Goyo,character:Max Kenton,order:1,cast_id:15,profile_path:/7PU6n4fhDuFwuwcYVyRNVEZE7ct.jpg},{id:8986,name:James Rebhorn,character:Marvin,order:6,cast_id:16,profile_path:/ezETMv0YM0Rg6YhKpu4vHuIY37D.jpg},{id:930729,name:Marco Ruggeri,character:Cliff,order:7,cast_id:17,profile_path:/1Ox63ukTd2yfOf1LVJOMXwmeQjO.jpg},{id:19860,name:Karl Yune,character:Tak Mashido,order:8,cast_id:18,profile_path:/qK315vPObCNdywdRN66971FtFez.jpg},{id:111206,name:Olga Fonda,character:Farra Lemkova,order:9,cast_id:19,profile_path:/j1qabOHf3Pf82f1lFpUmdF5XvSp.jpg},{id:53176,name:John Gatins,character:Kingpin,order:10,cast_id:41,profile_path:/A2MqnSKVzOuBf8MVfNyve2h2LxJ.jpg},{id:1126350,name:Sophie Levy,character:Big Sister,order:11,cast_id:42,profile_path:null},{id:1126351,name:Tess Levy,character:Little Sister,order:12,cast_id:43,profile_path:null},{id:1126352,name:Charlie Levy,character:Littlest Sister,order:13,cast_id:44,profile_path:null},{id:187983,name:Gregory Sims,character:Bill Panner,order:14,cast_id:45,profile_path:null}],crew:[{id:58726,name:Leslie Bohem,department:Writing,job:Screenplay,profile_path:null},{id:53176,name:John Gatins,department:Writing,job:Screenplay,profile_path:/A2MqnSKVzOuBf8MVfNyve2h2LxJ.jpg},{id:17825,name:Shawn Levy,department:Directing,job:Director,profile_path:/7f2f8EXdlWsPYN0HPGcIlG21xU.jpg},{id:12415,name:Richard Matheson,department:Writing,job:Story,profile_path:null},{id:57113,name:Dan Gilroy,department:Writing,job:Story,profile_path:null},{id:25210,name:Jeremy Leven,department:Writing,job:Story,profile_path:null},{id:17825,name:Shawn Levy,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:/7f2f8EXdlWsPYN0HPGcIlG21xU.jpg},{id:34970,name:Susan Montford,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:/1XJt51Y9ciPhkHrAYE0j6Jsmgji.jpg},{id:3183,name:Don Murphy,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:null},{id:34967,name:Rick Benattar,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:null},{id:1126348,name:Eric Hedayat,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:null},{id:186721,name:Ron Ames,department:Production,job:Producer,profile_path:null},{id:10956,name:Josh McLaglen,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:null},{id:57634,name:Mary McLaglen,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:null},{id:23779,name:Jack Rapke,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:null},{id:488,name:Steven Spielberg,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:/cuIYdFbEe89PHpoiOS9tmo84ED2.jpg},{id:30,name:Steve Starkey,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:null},{id:24,name:Robert Zemeckis,department:Production,job:Executive Producer,profile_path:/isCuZ9PWIOyXzdf3ihodXzjIumL.jpg},{id:531,name:Danny Elfman,department:Sound,job:Original Music Composer,profile_path:/pWacZpYPos8io22nEiim7d3wp2j.jpg},{id:18265,name:Mauro Fiore,department:Crew,job:Cinematography,profile_path:null},{id:54271,name:Dean Zimmerman,department:Editing,job:Editor,profile_path:null},{id:25365,name:Richard Hicks,department:Production,job:Casting,profile_path:null},{id:5490,name:David Rubin,department:Production,job:Casting,profile_path:null},{id:52088,name:Tom Meyer,department:Art,job:Production Design,profile_path:null}]}
i have tried string.match(fixstrdirector,"name:(.+),department:Directing")
but it gives me the from the first occurace it find the name to the end of thr string
output:
Hope Davis,character:Aunt Debra,order:5,cast_id:10,profile_path:/aIHF11Ss8P0A8JUfiWf8OHPVhOs.jpg},{id:53650,name:Anthony Mackie,character:Finn,order:3,cast_id:11,profile_path:/5VGGJ0Co8SC94iiedWb2o3C36T.jpg},{id:19034,name:Evangeline Lilly,character:Bailey Tallet,order:2,cast_id:12,profile_path:/oAOpJKgKEdW49jXrjvUcPcEQJb3.jpg},{id:6968,name:Hugh Jackman,character:Charlie Kenton,order:0,cast_id:13,profile_path:/wnl7esRbP3paALKn4bCr0k8qaFu.jpg},{id:79072,name:Kevin Durand,character:Ricky,order:4,cast_id:14,profile_path:/c95tTUjx5T0D0ROqTcINojpH6nB.jpg},{id:234479,name:Dakota Goyo,character:Max Kenton,order:1,cast_id:15,profile_path:/7PU6n4fhDuFwuwcYVyRNVEZE7ct.jpg},{id:8986,name:James Rebhorn,character:Marvin,order:6,cast_id:16,profile_path:/ezETMv0YM0Rg6YhKpu4vHuIY37D.jpg},{id:930729,name:Marco Ruggeri,character:Cliff,order:7,cast_id:17,profile_path:/1Ox63ukTd2yfOf1LVJOMXwmeQjO.jpg},{id:19860,name:Karl Yune,character:Tak Mashido,order:8,cast_id:18,profile_path:/qK315vPObCNdywdRN66971FtFez.jpg},{id:111206,name:Olga Fonda,character:Farra Lemkova,order:9,cast_id:19,profile_path:/j1qabOHf3Pf82f1lFpUmdF5XvSp.jpg},{id:53176,name:John Gatins,character:Kingpin,order:10,cast_id:41,profile_path:/A2MqnSKVzOuBf8MVfNyve2h2LxJ.jpg},{id:1126350,name:Sophie Levy,character:Big Sister,order:11,cast_id:42,profile_path:null},{id:1126351,name:Tess Levy,character:Little Sister,order:12,cast_id:43,profile_path:null},{id:1126352,name:Charlie Levy,character:Littlest Sister,order:13,cast_id:44,profile_path:null},{id:187983,name:Gregory Sims,character:Bill Panner,order:14,cast_id:45,profile_path:null}],crew:[{id:58726,name:Leslie Bohem,department:Writing,job:Screenplay,profile_path:null},{id:53176,name:John Gatins,department:Writing,job:Screenplay,profile_path:/A2MqnSKVzOuBf8MVfNyve2h2LxJ.jpg},{id:17825,name:Shawn Levy

You're searching from the first occurrence of "name:" until the "department:Directing" with everything in between.
Instead, you need to restrict what can be between the two strings. Here for example I'm saying that the characters that make up the name can only be alphanumeric or a space:
string.match(fixstrdirector,"name:([%w ]+),department:Directing")
Alternatively, given that there's a comma separating the parameters, a better approach would be to search for "name:" followed by any characters other than a comma, followed by "department:Directing":
string.match(fixstrdirector,"name:([^,]+),department:Directing")
Of course that wouldn't work if the name had a comma it in!

Lua patterns provides - modifier for tasks as you have above. As stated on PiL - Section 20.2:
The + modifier matches one or more characters of the original class.
It will always get the longest sequence that matches the pattern.
Like *, the modifier - also matches zero or more occurrences of
characters of the original class. However, instead of matching the
longest sequence, it matches the shortest one.
Next, when you are using . to match, it'll find any and all characters satisfying the pattern. Therefore, you'll get the result from first occurence of name until the ,department:Directing is found. Since you know that it is a JSON data, you can try to match for [^,]; that is, non-comma characters.
So, for your case try:
local tAllNames = {}
for sName in fixstrdirector:gmatch( "name:([^,]-),department:Directing" ) do
tAllNames[ #tAllNames + 1 ] = sName
end
and all your required names will be stored in the table tAllNames. An example of the above can be seen at codepad.

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