Let's say I have a field where there are multiple hyphens, but I only want to change the first one to a /, while keeping the other hyphens as they are. I know a replace action will do it, but the problem is it'll change all of them. What's the code to limit it to only a specific instance?
Maybe a regular expression?
Please show us a real existing field with real existing content then we can help you much better.
As a first hint: Have a look at Convert>Tag-Tag for the field (GENRE?)
Format string: $regexp(%field%,(.*?) - (.*), $1 / $2)
and see whether the preview shows something promising.
It should be obvious, that you put the real field name instead of %field%.
The field for this example is %album%.
I want to keep the hyphen between "028" and "Metro" as is, but change the proceeding three hyphens to /.
Try
Format string: $regexp($replace('Capitol Hi-Q L-028 - Metro - Light Activity - Toy - Comedy', - , / ),(.*?) / (.*), $1 - $2)
That's very close. Just one thing. Is there a way, in the same string, to delete the spaces around the slashes?
So that section can look like this:
Metro/Light Activity/Toy/Comedy
Replace the blank-slash-blank with just a slash anywhere you find it in the expression.
As Convert>Tag-Tag has a preview, you should see the immediate effekt as soon as you edit the expression.
Maybe I'm not doing something right, but for some reason I can't adjust the spacing around the would-be slashes without it also replacing the first hyphen with a slash, which I want left alone.
I can do a replace action after the conversion to swap out all the blank-slash-blanks with just a slash, but I was hoping it could all be done in one step.
Try
$regexp($replace('Capitol Hi-Q L-028 - Metro - Light Activity - Toy - Comedy', - ,/),(.*?)/(.*),$1 - $2)
whch leads to:
Capitol Hi-Q L-028 - Metro/Light Activity/Toy/Comedy
That did it! Thank you!
Is there a tutorial or information database on here that explains what all these symbols represent? I feel like I could figure out this more easily if I knew the right symbols to use for a given situation.
See the documentation:
You can copy & paste such expressions to regular expression test websites like regex101.com
They give you an explanation for (.*?)/(.*) like this:
The 1st Capturing Group is represented by $1
The 2nd Capturing Group is represented by $2
In the above example $1 - $2, there is a space, a hyphen and a space between the ouptut of $1 and $2
(dividing Capitol Hi-Q L-028 from Metro/Light Activity/Toy/Comedy)
The regular expression will be combined with a $replace command, where all space hyphen will be replaced with as slash.