Participant

Question

Newbie question re replace in string

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 28, 2018
2 replies
2101 views

I created an "action", to get a document's file and path by copying the following code (which I found somewhere on the web) into the console:

/* Put script title here */
console.show(); // open console
console.clear(); // clear contents
console.println(this.path); // display the current pdf's path

The action generates the following text in the console output window:

/F/VB/PythonAndPySide_Info/Python_Info/Introduction to Python Classes (Part 1 of 2) - Python Central.pdf

I am beginning to try to learn javascript. (I'm comfortable in vba and python, but I'm having trouble learning Acrobat javascript).

I want to use javascript to (1) insert a ":" after the drive letter "F"; (2) remove the first forward slash ("/"); and (3) replace the replace the remaining forward slashes with back slashes.

I tried unsuccessfully to do #3 first, but the following code produced an error message:

/* Put script title here */
console.show(); // open console
console.clear(); // clear contents
var fullname = this.path;
fullname = fullname.replace("/", "\");
console.println(fullname); // display the current pdf's path

The error message was:

SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
5: at line 6

I would very much appreciate any help anyone could give me. I don't know where on the web I could learn this stuff.

Marc

This topic has been closed for replies.

Thom Parker

Community Expert

Read this:

https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/file-paths-acrobat-javascript

And This:

https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/splitting-and-rebuilding-strings

And this:

https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/text-matching-regular-expressions

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

G

gkaiseril

Inspiring

The JavaScript Escape character is "\". This character is used to signal JavaScript to create characters that you cannot in JavaScript like control characters (new line, return, tab, etc.) or that the next character is to be treated as a part of the string and not a terminating string character. Sine the "\" is a special character one needs to prefix it with a "\" to have the string value include the "\" as a character in the string.

You should be getting an error message in the JavaScript console indicating the the line in the JavaScript with the error.

/* Put script title here */

console.show(); // open console;

console.clear(); // clear contents;

var fullname = this.path;

fullname = fullname.replace("/", "\\");

console.println(fullname); // display the current pdf's path;

This will only replace the first occurrence of the "\". To replace the "\" globally you need to use the RegExp with the global flag.

M

marceepooAuthor

Participant

Thank you. I'll read the pages to which Thom Parker referred me, one of which I think shows how regular expressions are used in Javascript (https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/text-matching-regular-expressions)

1. Thank you for telling me:

gkaiseril wrote
This will only replace the first occurrence of the "\". To replace the "\" globally you need to use the RegExp with the global flag.

That does not explain why Acrobat gives me this error message:

SyntaxError: unterminated string literal

5: at line 6

If one replacement was made by my code, why do I get an error message?

2. I think there's a typo in the line "You should be getting an error message in the JavaScript console indicating the the line in the JavaScript with the error." i.e., I don't understand what you are saying (and I apologize for being obtuse).

3. Could I impose on you to show me how to perform this replace? Of if not, can you help me find some examples of javascript (in an acrobat context) where a regular expression replace is performed? I know how to do these things in vba and python. I will read the links that Thom Parker gave me.

Bernd Alheit

Community Expert

1. Use "\\" not "\"

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