ScriptForge.String service

The String service provides a collection of methods for string processing. These methods can be used to:

• Validate the contents of strings

• Format strings by trimming, justifying or wrapping their contents

• Use regular expressions to search and replace substrings

• Apply hash algorithms on strings, etc.

Definitions

Line breaks

The String service recognizes the following line breaks:

空白として使用される文字

The String service recognizes the following whitespaces:

Escape sequences

Below is a list of escape sequences that can be used in strings.

To have the escape sequence "\n" interpreted as an actual string, simply use "\\n" instead of "\" & Chr(10).

Non-printable characters:

Characters defined in the Unicode Character Database as “Other” or “Separator” are considered as non-printable characters.

Control characters (ASCII code <= 0x1F) are also considered as non-printable.

Quotes inside strings:

To add quotes in strings use \' (single quote) or \" (double quote). For example:

• The string [str\'i\'ng] is interpreted as [str'i'ng]

• The string [str\"i\"ng] is interpreted as [str"i"ng]

Service invocation

Before using the ScriptForge.String service the ScriptForge library needs to be loaded using:

      GlobalScope.BasicLibraries.loadLibrary("ScriptForge")
  

Loading the library will create the SF_String object that can be used to call the methods in the String service.

The following code snippets show the three ways to call methods from the String service (the Capitalize method is used as an example):

    Dim s as String : s = "abc def"
    s = SF_String.Capitalize(s) ' Abc Def
  

    Dim s as String : s = "abc def"
    Dim svc : svc = SF_String
    s = svc.Capitalize(s) ' Abc Def
  

    Dim s as String : s = "abc def"
    Dim svc : svc = CreateScriptService("String")
    s = svc.Capitalize(s) ' Abc Def
  

The code snippet below illustrates how to invoke methods from the String service in Python scripts. The IsIPv4 method is used as an example.

    from scriptforge import CreateScriptService
    svc = CreateScriptService("String")
    ip_address = '192.168.0.14'
    svc.IsIPv4(ip_address) # True
  

プロパティ

The SF_String object provides the following properties for Basic scripts:

You can use the properties above to identify or insert the corresponding characters inside strings. For example, the Linefeed can be replaced by SF_String.sfLF.

The first argument of most methods is the string to be considered. It is always passed by reference and left unchanged. Methods such as Capitalize, Escape, etc return a new string after their execution.

Because Python has comprehensive built-in string support, most of the methods in the String service are available for Basic scripts only. The methods available for Basic and Python are: HashStr, IsADate, IsEmail, IsFileName, IsIBAN, IsIPv4, IsLike, IsSheetName, IsUrl, SplitNotQuoted and Wrap.

Capitalize

Capitalizes the first character from each word in the input string.

svc.Capitalize(inputstr: str): str

inputstr: The string to be capitalized.

    Dim sName as String : sName = "john smith"
    Dim sCapitalizedName as String
    sCapitalizedName = SF_String.Capitalize(sName)
    MsgBox sCapitalizedName 'John Smith
  

Count

Counts the number of occurrences of a substring or a regular expression within a string.

svc.Count(inputstr: str, substring: str, [isregex: bool], [casesensitive: bool]): int

inputstr: The input string to be examined

substring: The substring or the regular expression to be used during search

isregex: Use True if the substring is a regular expression (Default = False)

casesensitive: The search can be case sensitive or not (Default = False).

    'Counts the occurrences of the substring "or" inside the input string (returns 2)
    MsgBox SF_String.Count("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.", "or", CaseSensitive := False)
    'Counts the number of words with only lowercase letters (returns 7)
    MsgBox SF_String.Count("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.", "\b[a-z]+\b", IsRegex := True, CaseSensitive := True)
  

To learn more about regular expressions, refer to the Python's documentation on Regular Expression Operations.

EndsWith

Returns True if a string ends with a specified substring.

The function returns False when either the string or the substring have a length = 0 or when the substring is longer than the string.

svc.EndsWith(inputstr: str, substring: str, [casesensitive: bool]): bool

inputstr: The string to be tested.

substring: The substring to be searched at the end of inputstr.

casesensitive: The search can be case sensitive or not (Default = False).

    'Returns True because the method was called with the default CaseSensitive = False
    MsgBox SF_String.EndsWith("abcdefg", "EFG")
    'Returns False due to the CaseSensitive parameter
    MsgBox SF_String.EndsWith("abcdefg", "EFG", CaseSensitive := True)
  

Escape

Converts linebreaks and tabs contained in the input string to their equivalent escaped sequence (\\, \n, \r, \t).

svc.Escape(inputstr: str): str

inputstr: The string to be converted.

    'Returns the string "abc\n\tdef\\n"
    MsgBox SF_String.Escape("abc" & Chr(10) & Chr(9) & "def\n")
  

ExpandTabs

Replaces Tab characters Chr(9) by space characters to replicate the behavior of tab stops.

If a line break is found, a new line is started and the character counter is reset.

svc.ExpandTabs(inputstr: str, [tabsize: int]): str

inputstr: The string to be expanded

tabsize: This parameter is used to determine the Tab stops using the formula: TabSize + 1, 2 * TabSize + 1 , ... N * TabSize + 1 (Default = 8)

    Dim myText as String
    myText = "100" & SF_String.sfTAB & "200" & SF_String.sfTAB & "300" & SF_String.sfNEWLINE & _
             "X"  & SF_String.sfTAB & "Y" & SF_String.sfTAB & "Z"
    MsgBox SF_String.ExpandTabs(myText)
    '100     200     300
    'X       Y       Z
  

FilterNotPrintable

Replaces all non-printable characters in the input string by a given character.

svc.FilterNotPrintable(inputstr: str, [replacedby: str]): str

inputstr: The string to be searched

replacedby: Zero, one or more characters that will replace all non-printable characters in inputstr (Default = "")

    Dim LF : LF = Chr(10)
    Dim myText as String
    myText = "àén ΣlPµ" & LF & " Русский" & "\n"
    MsgBox SF_String.FilterNotPrintable(myText)
    ' "àén ΣlPµ Русский\n"
  

FindRegex

Finds in a string a substring matching a given regular expression.

svc.FindRegex(inputstr: str, regex: str, [start: int], [casesensitive: bool], [forward: bool]): str

inputstr: The string to be searched

regex: The regular expression

start: The position in the string where the search will begin. This parameter is passed by reference, so after execution the value of start will point to the first character of the found substring. If no matching substring is found, start will be set to 0.

casesensitive: The search can be case sensitive or not (Default = False).

forward: Determines the direction of the search. If True, search moves forward. If False search moves backwards (Default = True)

At the first iteration, if forward = True, then start should be equal to 1, whereas if forward = False then start should be equal to Len(inputstr)

    Dim lStart As Long : lStart = 1
    Dim result as String
    result = SF_String.FindRegex("abCcdefghHij", "C.*H", lStart, CaseSensitive := True)
    MsgBox lStart & ": " & result
    '3: CcdefghH
  

In the example above, the new value of lStart can be used to keep searching the same input string by setting the Start parameter to lStart + Len(result) at the next iteration.

HashStr

Hash functions are used inside some cryptographic algorithms, in digital signatures, message authentication codes, manipulation detection, fingerprints, checksums (message integrity check), hash tables, password storage and much more.

The HashStr method returns the result of a hash function applied on a given string and using a specified algorithm, as a string of lowercase hexadecimal digits.

The hash algorithms supported are: MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384 and SHA512.

svc.HashStr(inputstr: str, algorithm: str): str

inputstr: The string to hash. It is presumed to be encoded in UTF-8. The hashing algorithm will consider the string as a stream of bytes.

algorithm: One of the supported algorithms listed above, passed as a string.

    MsgBox SF_String.HashStr("œ∑¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–≠œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ‘åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬", "MD5")
    ' c740ccc2e201df4b2e2b4aa086f35d8a
  

    svc = CreateScriptService("String")
    bas = CreateScriptService("Basic")
    a_string = "œ∑¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–≠œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ‘åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬"
    hash_value = svc.HashStr(a_string, "MD5")
    bas.MsgBox(hash_value)
    # c740ccc2e201df4b2e2b4aa086f35d8a
  

HtmlEncode

Encodes the input string into the HTML character codes, replacing special characters by their & counterparts.

For example, the character é would be replaced by &eacute; or an equivalent numerical HTML code.

svc.HtmlEncode(inputstr: str): str

inputstr: The string to encode.

    MsgBox SF_String.HtmlEncode("<a href=""https://a.b.com"">From α to ω</a>")
    ' "&lt;a href=&quot;https://a.b.com&quot;&gt;From &#945; to &#969;&lt;/a&gt;"
  

IsADate

Returns True if the input string is a valid date according to a specified date format.

svc.IsADate(inputstr: str, [dateformat: str]): bool

inputstr: The string to be checked. If empty, the method returns False

dateformat: The date format, as a string. It can be either "YYYY-MM-DD" (default), "DD-MM-YYYY" or "MM-DD-YYYY"

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