Calling JavaScript from Basic: regular expressions

[ms777]

With OO2.0 beta, JavaScript support has been added to OO. The JavaScript features concerning regular expressions are more elaborate and easier to handle than the UNO approach. For example, in UNO there is no way to address the () subexpressions in the replace term.

This shows (i) how to call JavaScript from BASIC and (ii) applies that to a regular expression replace function, applicable to BASIC strings.

The BASIC:

[Cybb20]

Hi there, nice example but things still seem to be pretty cryptic.
What do you want to do here: sReturn = RegExpReplace(oScriptReplace, "127,0,0,1", "([0-9]{1,3}),([0-9]{1,3}),([0-9]{1,3}),([0-9]{1,3})", "gi", "$1 A $2 B $3 C $4") ?

Looks ugly, doesn't it? :/

Christian
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[ms777]

looks ugly, indeed. But regular expressions pay for their strength by ugliness ...

I admit, I have not shown a particular useful example, but one example, which demos a Javascript regexp capability, which UNO regexp does not have: The usage of subexpressions, marked by (...), in the replace term (the $s).
So
"127,0,0,1"
is expected to transform to
"127 A 0 B 0 C 1"

You cant do that by UNO regexp to the best of my knowledge.

[DannyB]

The key useful technique I see is how to call a function written in another scripting language, passing parameters, and returning a result.

The Regular Expressions example is but one useful application of this technique.
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[ms777]

for an application of the very powerful JavaScript sort function in BASIC routines see http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=84338#84338 . This also deals with the passing back of arrays from JavaScript routines

[tulipa]

How do you get rid of JavaScript worms on your PC? Apparently I was infected with JavaScript worms, and I can't go into some forums without getting banned from them for "posting" them! How can I get rid of them?
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what is javascript

[xavic69]

[zottona]

I'm not allowed to use spellcheck, cannot edit my questions, cannot press "show" on hidden (-5) answers. It says "must have Javascript enabled." I've gone to Tools, Internet Options, followed that whole thing. I've gone to Java.com and downloaded the latest version. Any other ideas?
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[wseverin]

With very minor tweaking this becomes a decent regex find/replace function for use with Calc. I'm going to include a bit more detail in this description for the benefit of folks who don't want to become experts; they just want to get some work done.

I'm here using OpenOffice 3.2, build 9483. If you're using a different version YMMV.

What we're going to do is create a function called RegRep that can be used just like any other function in a Calc sheet cell. It will be called with four string arguments:

1) sSource — the text to be searched
2) sRegExp — the regex search pattern
3) sGlobUpcase — the search rules; "g" for global, "i" for case insensitive
4) sReplace — the replacement string/pattern

Here's an example of its use to return the source string in A2 with all of the lower case vowels removed except where they are followed by a space or the end of the string: