help with little script using grep

[pretendermadafaka]

i am a begginer but i guess this will not be a problem for somebody who is experienced...

i am working with a lot of files that have tags. tag for italic text, tag for centered text and so on, i manage to

get regular expression to work and to do all of these things with find/change dialog, but i would like to

automate all of it..

so for example i have part of the text that need to be italic that is enclosed in underscores like this _something that needs to be italic_

and i have this regular expression that takes care of it _[A-Za-z0-9,;\-\?\(&!\):'". ]+_

finds all the matches and applies the text style i want.

how to do that with script? thanks in advance.

[pretendermadafaka]

any hints?

[Marc Autret]

Use FindChangeByList.jsx (with 'grep' findType).

@+

Marc

[pretendermadafaka]

ok, ok tried that, i opened FindChangeList.txt and changed one line and uncommented it

here is who it looks:

grep  {findWhat:"_[A-Za-z0-9,;\-\?\(&!\):'. ]+_"}  {applied paragraph style:paragraph style "boldanditalic"} {includeFootnotes:true}  finad and change to ita

and it doesnt work

i tried some of the text examples and they do work...what is going on? is there any simple test to try?

(this regex works in find/change dialog)

thanks again for the effort

[Marc Autret]

I think you need to escape the backslashes:

{ findWhat : "_[A-Za-z0-9,;\\-\\?\\(&!\\):'. ]+_" }

Just a question, why not using this:

{ findWhat : "_[^_]+_" }

@+

Marc

[pretendermadafaka]

oh, you are write your expression work like a charm "_[^_]+_"

the point is that i needed something fast and didnt know regex very well, and i am still a beginner..

also, this works only in find/change dialog but not when i try to run a script ;( here is the line that i uncomented in the FindChangeList.txt

grep  {findWhat : "_[^_]+_"}  {changeTo:"^_"} {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:true}     description

i am not sure do i need stuff enclosed in third pair of parethesis...

anyhow, i save this file and ran the script from indesign...nothing happens

maybe it is a bug...i tried some of the lines that deal with text and that worked like a charm but grep dont.

thanks for helping me.

[pretendermadafaka]

ok, i made it to work with countless tries, and it works but only first time, and i undo and run script again it doesnt work (text does but grep dont)

i then need to restart indesign to make it work again...what a hell is going on???

how to make this work as it should?? thanks guys!

[Jongware]

Going back to your first GREP, search for this

_([A-Za-z0-9,;\-\?\(&!\):'". ]+)_

and replace with

$1

(with formatting in italic and/or your style) will do the formatting and remove the underscores at the same time. Only if you are totally sure the underscores are balanced, use

_([^_])_

-- if there is only one single unbalanced one, it'll mess up your text.

It should work correct in the interface; to put it into the findreplace script file, double the backslashes -- that's all.

[pretendermadafaka]

thanks everybody, i manage to get it work taking into account what was written here...it all comes down to this:

cs3 findchangelist script messes up indesign, i am using cs4 version and it doesnt give any problems

line that i am using for italic is:

grep    {findWhat:"_[A-Za-z0-9,;\\-\\?\\(&!\\):'\".~b/]+_"}    {appliedFont:"Adobe Garamond Pro", fontStyle:"Bold Italic", pointSize:13}    {includeLockedStoriesForFind:false, includeLockedLayersForFind:false, includeHiddenLayers:false, includeMasterPages:false, includeFootnotes:true}    //Comment

thanks again!

@[Jongware]

thanks, i am back to the old grep!