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Replace Text Expression
Howdy,
Problem: I am loading text dynamically from an XML file to write credits for several artists using a script. When I pull the data into AE it keeps introducing a string of escaped code. I can’t seem to solve the broken code, but the string it dumps in is always the same, its a unicode value.
Solution(i think): attach an expression to search for the escaped code in Source Text. Replace the unicode with another string of text using if/else.
Questions: Here is loosely what I imagined using. How do I make it search and find just the one string?
if (text.sourceText = “\xyz”) text.sourceText = “replaced” else (text.sourceText);
right now this code would return “replaced” regardless of what is in the source text. So its totally broken. I understand why, but I don’t know how to tell it to find just one string in sourceText. Please help!
Thanks in advance. This forum has helped me so many times!
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11 Replies
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try this:
text.sourceText.replace(/something to replace/gi, “what to replace it with”)
-Lloyd
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in case you are wondering what the gi stands for:
search (g)lobally for the string and be case (i)nsensitive
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You should be able to fix the problem in the script, but if not, this expressions should do it:
text.sourceText.replace(/xyz/,”replaced”)
Dan
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Thanks for the tips. Victory!
You guys are awesome!
Do either of you have any good resources for expressions that control text?
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Any good JavaScript reference will have a section on string methods, which will be very helpful. It should also include a section on “Regular Expressions” (not related to AE expressions) which are used by some of the string methods.
Dan
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Thanks again Dan!
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How would I replace multiple strings of text?
Currently I have:replace(“‚Äú”, ‘”‘)
replace(“‚Äù”, ‘”‘)But it is only looking at the second string.
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Try it this way:
replace(/‚Äú|‚Äù/g, ‘”‘)
Dan
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what if I am wanting to replace multiple codes with different characters, like a quotation mark, apostrophe & an em-dash all on 1 layer of text?
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I suppose you could do something like this:
txt = thisComp.layer(“text”).text.sourceText;
txt.replace(/”/g,”x”).replace(/’/g,”y”).replace(/-/g,”z”)Dan
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