Over in another thread <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlywiki/4hE3-KUOqkY> I finally got to understand filters better. And, thanks to Mark S., achieved what I needed to do.
HOWEVER. I feel slightly diminished. I am crap with computers. But one thing I know well is Regular Expressions. I was surprised at the very complex loops that i had to go through to CHANGE stuff in the way I needed to in that thread. Let me give an example ... <$set name=test filter=" [list[!!text]prefix[#]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix['s]] +[!suffix['s]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[.]] +[!suffix[.]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[...]] +[!suffix[...]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[,]] +[!suffix[,]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[;]] +[!suffix[;]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[:]] +[!suffix[:]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[!]] +[!suffix[!]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[?]] +[!suffix[?]] [list[!!text]prefix[#]removesuffix[--]] +[!suffix[--]] [list[!!text]prefix[...#]removeprefix[...]] +[!prefix[...]] [list[!!text]prefix[--#]removeprefix[--]] +[!prefix[--]] "> Here is sample data this deals with ... left alone - #buddha #buddha #buddha remove apostrophised ending - #BuddHA's remove fullstop - #buddha. remove comma - #buddha, remove semicolon - #buddha; remove colon - #buddha: remove exclamation mark - #buddha! remove question mark - #buddha? remove 2 trailing dashes - #buddha-- remove 3 trailing stops - #BUDDHA... remove 2 leading dashes - --#Buddha remove 3 leading stops - ...#Buddha left alone - #notBuddha #BuddhaDANGER" (NOT YET DEALT WITH) left alone #karma In JavaScript Regular Expressions ALL these cases, and more---discarding the cruft of punctuation that all that code in the first box has to deal with---would be matched by simply: *"#w+\b"*. Nothing more would be needed. If you could just transfer the match you would not have any of that prefix/suffix malarky to cope with. WHY is it SO difficult in TW to do that? It seems nuts. I am aware there is a regexp operator, but can it RETURN its exact match for processing, or is it what it looks like: a match with something IN a field it adds to a list to display but then the match itself is discarded? All of this is as long way of saying two things ... (1) Regular Expressions (BOTH match & replace) are natural TW allies (2) I don't understand why we don't have a more friendly relationship with them. Please ask if anything is unclear. Best wishes Josiah -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/6339301e-ecdd-4615-b5c7-c510373ba662%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
