Need some more explanation / help with manipulating strings.

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March 17th, 2005, 03:28 PM

linhardt

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Location: missouri

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Need some more explanation / help with manipulating strings.

Say I have the string:
var X = " This is a test, SHP - 3x3x3x3x3x3x"

I want to find out if that character after "SHP - " is numeric or alpha. If it is alpha then I want to strip "SHP - " from the string.

I know the basic of stripping the string and I think that the below example will strip the "SHP - ". But unsure how to figure out whether the character after "SHP - " is numeric or alpha.

var newstr = X.replace(/SHP - /, "");

Any assistance would be appreciated.

March 17th, 2005, 04:56 PM

IroncomNetworks

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Using regular expressions is the simplest way to find if something is after something else.

I found this good tutorial on how to do regular expressions in javascript athttp://www.webreference.com/

You should have something like the code below, I have not tested the code.

Code:

var X = " This is a test, SHP - 3x3x3x3x3x3x"
var tmp = x.match(/\w.*SHP(\w.*)/);
if(regex.$1 = null) {
  //nothing after SHP
}
else {
 //something after SHP
}

Everything inside ( ) gets assigned to regex.$1 . If you have more then one set of ( ) in x.match each additional one becomes regex.$1, regex.$2, regex.$3 etc in the order they got declared

the \w says look for any word characters. These include letters, numbers, spaces, and punctuation.

Take a look at the URL I provided. It'll give you good information

March 21st, 2005, 10:49 AM

linhardt

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Location: missouri

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I went through the tutorial and kind of got how to accomplish this.

Here is my code:

Code:

<html>
  <head>
  </head>
  <body>
<script>
function testthis (){
var X = "This is a test, SHP - 1"
var reg1 = /^.*SHP - [^0-9]$/;

if (reg1.test(X)) { // if syntax is valid
    alert("\"" + X + "\" has letter after \"SHP - \""); // this is optional
    return true;
  }
  alert("\"" + X + "\" has number after \"SHP - \"");
}

</script>
<input type=button value = "click" onclick="testthis();">
  </body>
</html>

But that only works if you have a single character (whether "alpha" or "numeric") after "SHP - ". But if you have more than one character after "SHP - " then it checks all the characters.
Such as "This is a test, SHP - 1a1a".

What would need to be added to stop after checking the first character after "SHP - "????? All I need to know if the first character after "SHP - " is alpha or numeric. I don't care about the rest.

Last edited by linhardt : March 21st, 2005 at 10:51 AM.

March 21st, 2005, 11:58 AM

linhardt

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2003

Location: missouri

Posts: 165

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I think I figured it out. Take the "$" out of var reg1 = /^.*SHP - [^0-9]$/; so it reads var reg1 = /^.*SHP - [^0-9]/;

Need some more explanation / help with manipulating strings.

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