Question

remove all text in brackets in a memo

Asked by: zattz

Hi,

I have a memo. I want to remove all text that is in brackets. Both () and [].

Eg: "The cat (my old cat) sat on the mat" = "The cat sat on the mat".

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Asked On
2007-06-28 at 11:14:35ID22664977
Tags

text

Topic

Delphi Programming

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: rhawkPosted on 2007-06-28 at 12:20:29ID: 19383775

I use Regular Expressions in most of my Delphi programming. Too handy for search and replace to not.
My advice (and I am sure it is not the best way if you do not use it for more) is to get tPerlRegEx (t'is free at http://www.regular-expressions.info/download/TPerlRegEx.zip) and then just use a simple match/replace.
Just match on '\[([^\]]*)]' and replace the result grouped result with an empty string. Then do it again with '\(([^\)]*))'

I am sure ppl out there can create a better regex search and I could combine the 2 searches into 1 by ORing  what I am looking for and using a backreference, but I like to keep them all simple. ;)

 

by: zattzPosted on 2007-06-28 at 13:23:50ID: 19384445

Hmm.. it dosnt appear to do anything.

Is this right?

PerlRegEx1.Subject:=memo1.text;
PerlRegEx1.RegEx:='\[([^\]]*)]';
PerlRegEx1.Replacement:='';
PerlRegEx1.ReplaceAll;
showmessage(perlregex1.subject);

 

by: mikelittlewoodPosted on 2007-06-28 at 13:25:24ID: 19384465

Here is a pretty simple way of handling it

unit Unit1;

interface

uses
  Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
  Dialogs, StdCtrls;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    Memo1: TMemo;
    Button1: TButton;
    procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
  private
      function removeCharacters( const pText: string;
         const pCharacters: array of char): string;
  public
    { Public declarations }
  end;

var
  Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

function TForm1.removeCharacters( const pText: string;
   const pCharacters: array of char): string;
var
   i: integer;
begin
   result := pText;
   for i := 0 to high( pCharacters) do
      result := stringReplace( result, pCharacters[ i], '', [ rfReplaceAll]);
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
   memo1.text := removeCharacters( memo1.text, [ '[',']','(',')']);
end;

end.

 

by: zattzPosted on 2007-06-28 at 13:30:54ID: 19384524

'\[([^\]]*)]' is working
but '\(([^\)]*))' says TPerlRegEx.Compile() - error in regex at offset 10: unmatched parenthesis

 

by: zattzPosted on 2007-06-28 at 13:39:13ID: 19384601

mike, I want to remove the text in the brackets, not just the brackets...

 

by: zattzPosted on 2007-06-28 at 14:33:02ID: 19385016

PerlRegEx1.Subject:=memo1.text;
PerlRegEx1.RegEx:='\(([^\)]*)\)';
PerlRegEx1.Replacement := '';
PerlRegEx1.ReplaceAll;
memo1.text:=PerlRegEx1.Subject;

 

by: rhawkPosted on 2007-06-28 at 14:46:42ID: 19385114

Thanks for the accepted solution status even though my regexp I slapped together was not right. :( I would have replied sooner but was out. :) Glad you worked it out. the pearlregexp is something I consider the key part of most of my applications and cannot live without. :)
Another great thing is Regular Expression Buddy (just google it). Makes life so easy!

 

by: zattzPosted on 2007-06-28 at 15:22:34ID: 19385332

The first expression worked, so I just posted another question asking somebody to fix the other one.
Great component. I really must take some time to learn regexp's ;)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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