Using GREP in Indesign scripts

[jakec88782761]

Hi Guys,

I've got this script which is trying to apply a couple of GREPs at once. From what I can tell it should work but for some reason my GREP expressions throw an error.

Can anyone give me some advice as to why it doesn't work?

function proofread () {
   
    app.findGrepPreferences=app.changeGrepPreferences=null;
   
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat= "the\s+?(section\s+?\t+?\d+?[.?\d+]?)";
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo="$1";
   
   
   
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
   
    app.findGrepPreferences=app.changeGrepPreferences=null;
   
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat="(?i)activity\s+?level";
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo="Activity\sLevel";
   
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
    }

proofread();

Thanks in advance

[Sajeev Sridharan · Accepted solution]

Try this,

function proofread () {
    app.findGrepPreferences=app.changeGrepPreferences=null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat= "the\\s+?(section\\s+?\\t+?\\d+?[.?\\d+]?)";
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo="$1";
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
    app.findGrepPreferences=app.changeGrepPreferences=null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat="(?i)activity\\s+?level";
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo="Activity\\sLevel";
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
    app.findGrepPreferences=app.changeGrepPreferences=null;
    }
proofread();

Alternate method:

findChange("the\\s+?(section\\s+?\\t+?\\d+?[.?\\d+]?)", "$1");
findChange("(?i)activity\\s+?level", "Activity\\sLevel");
function findChange(findWhat, changeTo) {
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
    if (findWhat) {
        app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = findWhat;
    }
    if (changeTo) {
        app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = changeTo;
    }
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
}

[jakec88782761]

Wow thanks Sajeev.

You even managed to make the script easier to read!

So is it Javascript in general where you have so double \\ to escape characters using GREP?