[JS][CS5.5] Syntax query

[Iain Robinson]

Hi all

After another long gap I'm coming back to scripting again and I've probably forgotten most of what I learned here before. I'm trying to capture the contents of the first paragraph (which identifies what sort of article it is) so I can then analyse it and do different things depending on what it finds. I think I can do the analysis (famous last words!) but I'm stuck at the first hurdle.

If I use a para style to identify the first para (which obviously means I'd have to ask the client to style it) it works okay;

var myDoc = app.activeDocument;

//Find the first para in the story (which contains the article type)

app.findGrepPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = "Identifier";

firstPara = myDoc.findGrep();

articleType = firstPara[0].contents;

alert(articleType);

But if I try to identify the first para using GREP (using app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat  = "\A^.+$";), which would be better as the para wouldn' thave to be styled, I get an "undefined is not an object error". Running a manual GREP search in ID with \A^.+$ finds the first para so it must be the syntax is wrong in my code.

Can anyone point out where I am going wrong please?

thanks,

Iain

[TᴀW]

I'm not sure I've understood, but if you're just trying to get the first

paragraph of something, then, for example, given a story myStory, the

first paragraph would be

myStory.paragraphs[0]

or given a text selection:

mySelection = app.activeDocument.selection[0]

myFirstPara = mySelection.parentStory.paragraphs[0]

etc.

Ariel

[moluapple · Accepted solution]

Should be app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat  = "\\A^.+$";

[Iain Robinson]

Aaargh! Thanks, I'd forgotten about having to escape that again. It works now.

Thanks also to Arïel - I'd forgotten about that method.