Replace " / " with ", " except when there is only one " / " or it is the last " / ", then replace with " & "

Support
#1

Hello,

I have been working with this script that I amalgamated from other scrips garnered here and I would like to get the second to last portion of this action to replace " / " with ", " except when there is only one " / " or it is the last " / ". If then, replace with " & "

Can anyone help me figure out how to do this?

Last Name, First Name More to First Name Last Name (Not affected by Forward slash), replace with , Artist; Artist to Involved People; Album Artist to Artist Sort.mta (449 Bytes)

#2

I don't know what you really want to achieve with the action group that you offered ...
But if you first split the ARTIST field with the / as separator and then you remove all duplicate fields of the type ARTIST then you will never get the / as part of the field ARTIST, I would say.

From a plausibility point of view ..
you want to have artists like artist1, artist2 / artist3 & artist4?
instead of artist1, artist2, artist3 & artist4

#3

Hello ohrenkino,

Sorry for not being clear.

I had set up some fields (sometimes it was the artist field and other times the artist sort field, an inconsistency I am trying to clean up) to list all the performers separated by " / ". So I would have:

Thea King / Gabrieli String Quartet / Kenneth Sillito / Brendan O'reilly / Ian Jewel / Keith Harvey

I want to copy this information to the involved people but then I need to convert the artist (sometimes artist sort field but I can change the script later to address that field) to read:

Thea King, Gabrieli String Quartet, Kenneth Sillito, Brendan O'reilly, Ian Jewel & Keith Harvey

However, some times I just have just two entities listed:

Andras Schiff / New Vienna Octet

and I would like it to read:

Andras Schiff & New Vienna Octet

Basically the last, or only " / " should be converted to " & "

Hopefully I have presented the state of affairs clearly. Thanks for your attention to this, it is appreciated!

#4

Then try the following:
First (simple) replace all slashes / with a comma.
Then try the following "Replace with regular expression":
Search string: (.*), (.*)
Replace with: $1 & $2

The greadiness will take care that this always happens only to the last comma.

2 Likes
#5

Perfect!

Not sure how the greediness does it, but I am glad it does!

#6

:wink:
I picked that up from the help:

where it talks about non-greedy repeats ...

1 Like
#7

Thanks for the link. I know I have read this before but this stuff just leaks out of my mind if I don't use it regularly. I will re-read and hopefully it will someday stick.

....actually, I read it, or at least the part about non-greedy repeats. Still can't find the greedy explanation...

#8

The standard quantifiers in regular expressions are greedy, meaning they match as much as they can, only giving back as necessary to match the remainder of the regex.

By using a lazy quantifier, the expression tries the minimal match first.

And for a long detailed explanation, you could read here for example.

1 Like
#9

Thanks LyricsLover, especially for the detailed link, which I have bookmarked. I am going to read that 100 times and let it digest. :blush:

Maybe if I took as much time learning scripting as I do music tagging I would be proficient, but alas, it is not a strong point of mine. That is why I so appreciate this community and the help of people like you, ohrenkino and Florian.

It is a very generous and kind and I really do appreciate it in this world where such qualities seem to be evaporating.

3 Likes
#10

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.