It's not allowed to be used like this? Regular expressions are replaced with variables.

Forum|Forum|9 months ago
July 19, 2025
1 reply
275 views

Why is that, it says the findWhat property setting is invalid?

What it should say is that gre doesn't have any data

I originally got it right by writing it directly like this:
var res = getGrepSearch("@", app.activeDocument);

gre = new RegExp('@');
main(){
 var res = getGrepSearch(gre, app.activeDocument);
}
.　.　.　..　.
function getGrepSearch(fp, s) {
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = { includeHiddenLayers: true, includeLockedLayersForFind: true, includeLockedStoriesForFind: true, includeMasterPages: true }
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = fp;
    //return app.findGrep()
    return s.findGrep()
}

Correct answer m1b

@dublove app.findGrepPrefereces.findWhat expects a String, not a RegExp. The string will be used by Indesign's regular expression matching engine. We use RegExp when we are doing matching *without* app.findGrepPreferences. You can't mix them. So this is correct:

(function () {

    var res = getGrepSearch("@", app.activeDocument);

    alert('Matched ' + res.length + ' results.');

})();

function getGrepSearch(findWhat, searchMe) {
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = { includeHiddenLayers: true, includeLockedLayersForFind: true, includeLockedStoriesForFind: true, includeMasterPages: true }
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = findWhat;

    if (!searchMe || 'function' !== typeof searchMe.findGrep)
        return app.findGrep();
    else
        return searchMe.findGrep();
};

m1b

Correct answer

Community Expert

@dublove app.findGrepPrefereces.findWhat expects a String, not a RegExp. The string will be used by Indesign's regular expression matching engine. We use RegExp when we are doing matching *without* app.findGrepPreferences. You can't mix them. So this is correct:

(function () {

    var res = getGrepSearch("@", app.activeDocument);

    alert('Matched ' + res.length + ' results.');

})();

function getGrepSearch(findWhat, searchMe) {
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = { includeHiddenLayers: true, includeLockedLayersForFind: true, includeLockedStoriesForFind: true, includeMasterPages: true }
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = findWhat;

    if (!searchMe || 'function' !== typeof searchMe.findGrep)
        return app.findGrep();
    else
        return searchMe.findGrep();
};

dubloveAuthor

Legend

Thanks for the reminder.
That'll be easy.
I'll go straight:

var what="@";
var repGre = new RegExp(/@/gi)
 
main(){
var res = getGrepSearch(what, app.activeDocument);
myFrame.contents.replace(repGre, "");
}

m1b

Community Expert

Hi @dublove no that's not quite right. You are doing the find using Indesign's find grep but then doing the replacement using ExtendScripts RegExp. Better to do it all in Indesign using changeGrep. Something like this:

(function () {

    // find "@" and change to "" in document
    doGrep("@", "", app.activeDocument);

})();

/**
 * Perform a findGrep or changeGrep.
 * @param {String} findWhat - the find grep string.
 * @param {String} [changeTo] - the change grep string (default: nothing).
 * @param {Document|Text|*} [searchMe] - the thing to search (default: all documents);
 * @returns {Array<Text>?}
 */
function doGrep(findWhat, changeTo, searchMe) {
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = { includeHiddenLayers: true, includeLockedLayersForFind: true, includeLockedStoriesForFind: true, includeMasterPages: true }
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = findWhat;

    if (undefined != changeTo) {
        app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = changeTo;
        if (!searchMe || 'function' !== typeof searchMe.changeGrep)
            app.changeGrep();
        else
            searchMe.changeGrep();
    }

    if (!searchMe || 'function' !== typeof searchMe.findGrep)
        return app.findGrep();
    else
        return searchMe.findGrep();

};

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