Wow, thank you, Christian, that works exactly as expected! (I only needed
to change the closing quotation mark for the script to run.)
This is very helpful – my 8,000-line file was magically modified within 8
seconds.
samar
On Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 8:13:30 PM UTC+1 ChristianBoyce wrote:
> You asked for GREP, and this isn’t GREP, but it still solves your problem.
> I used AppleScript.
>
> Note: this script is written in order to be as easy to follow as possible.
> It could be improved of course.
>
> Basically I’m going down your document a line at a time, comparing what’s
> on the left side of the tab to the value that was in Column One the last
> time it changed. If it’s the same as that, I don’t write it— I just write
> tab and Column Two to a variable called newText. If it’s different, I write
> Column One and Column Two to newText. Finally I set the text of the
> document to the contents of the variable newText.
>
> Watch out fo the line that sets AppleScript’s text item delimiters to a
> tab. The line actually looks like this before compiling:
>
> *set* AppleScript's text item delimiters *to* {"\t”}
>
> But when you compile the slash-t is changed to a tab, which is invisible.
>
> --
>
> *use* AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
> *use* *scripting additions*
>
> *tell* *application* "BBEdit"
> *set* myDoc *to* *document* 1
> *set* originalText *to* *text* *of* myDoc
> *set* newText *to* ""
> *set* ColumnOne *to* ""
> *set* ColumnTwo *to* ""
> --
> *set* theParagraphs *to* *paragraphs* *of* originalText *as* *list*
> *repeat* *with* aParagraph *in* theParagraphs
> *set* saveTID *to* AppleScript's text item delimiters
> *set* AppleScript's text item delimiters *to* {" “}— that’s a tab in
> there— you can’t tell but it is. Use “\t” as I’ve written
> — on the next line
> -- *set* AppleScript's text item delimiters *to* {"\t”}— commented out so
> you can see how it looks before compiling
>
> *set* thisColumnOne *to* *text item* 1 *of* aParagraph
> *set* thisColumnTwo *to* *text item* 2 *of* aParagraph
> *if* thisColumnOne *is* ColumnOne *then*
> *set* thisOutput *to* tab & thisColumnTwo & return
> *else*
> *set* thisOutput *to* thisColumnOne & tab & thisColumnTwo & return
> *set* ColumnOne *to* thisColumnOne
> *end* *if*
> *set* newText *to* newText & thisOutput
> *end* *repeat*
> *set* AppleScript's text item delimiters *to* saveTID
> *set* *text* *of* myDoc *to* newText
> *end* *tell*
>
> On Mar 20, 2021, at 4:30 AM, samar <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> This is the first time a post a message here.
>
> I'm looking for something which I assume is pretty easy to accomplish with
> GREP but I fail to see how.
>
> I have a large text file with entries sorted in this way:
>
> <tab1.png>
>
> That is, each line has two elements (represented here by A\d and B\d)
> separated by one tab character. The length of the two elements is between 1
> and 100 characters each.
>
> Now I need a GREP Find/Replace string to make it look like this:
>
> <tab2.png>
>
> That is, the first element is replaced by a tab character *if* the first
> element is a repetition of the first element of the previous line(s). The
> sort order remains unchanged.
>
> Sounds simple. And yet all I manage to GREP for is this:
>
> <Screenshot 2021-03-20 at 12.26.11.png>
> The result looks promising but in now way satisfactory:
>
> <Screenshot 2021-03-20 at 12.22.46.png>
>
> The tab characters are inserted correctly, but the problem has to do with
> repetition ... Does anyone see how this can be resolved?
>
> Thanks
> samar
>
>
>
> —
>
> Socially distantly yours,
>
> Christian Boyce
>
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