This engine allows users to use Regular Expressions to manipulate MapInfo tables and datasets. The engine is designed for batch updates using RegEx. With a simple command, e.g.:
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Format" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "ID:(\d+)" "i" "$1"
You can quickly use RegEx to extract data from large databases. Features include:
- Return all or a number of matches from a pattern found in a string.
- Replacing a pattern in a string with another pattern
- Formatting a pattern in a string with another pattern
- Counting the number of repititions of a given pattern in a string.
- Returning the position of a pattern in a string
The syntax has been made to try to limit the number of calls required to the engine itself. If something isn't possible without a number of calls to the engine feel free to raise an issue about it. Either there may be a better way to do what you are trying to do, or a feature may be required to do it.
The engine has also been designed with scripting in mind:
To script in the MapBasic Window Scripting simply run note "Waiting for Regex response..." after you make the call to the engine. For example:
run program """<ENGINE-PATH>\MI_RegexEngine.exe"" ""Alias"" ""Params..."""
note "Waiting for Regex response..."
note "Regex Complete! Execute more code here!"
The code above will run the RegEx engine, freeze the MapBasic script while the regex engine is running, and unfreeze the running script again after the RegEx engine has completed it's task.
Alternatively if you are writing code in MapBasic to be compiled to MBX you can use ShellAndWait() to run the engine synchronously with your MBX. See: http://stackoverflow.com/a/41250939/6302131 for more information regarding this.
Finally if the output column name is $msg or $message then all outputs from the Regex Engine will be outputted to the message window. This can be extremely useful for experimentation and testing!
Note there is currently a bug with this functionality:
If blank lines are found in the column currently there is a bug where these data entries are not printed to the message window. However when updating the MapInfo table everything will work as normal.
- Add default GUI.
- Add a way to select HWND to perform regex on. Perhaps in tablename:: @{myHwnd}|MyTableName
- Ability to use multiple input columns e.g.:
"Col1 & Col2 & Col3" - Build a .mbo file which links to regex engine in a more direct/efficient way than with the command line.
- Regex Select
Regex Match reads all data from the column InputColumn of table TableName, uses RegEx to find the needle specified, and returns the found data to the column OutputColumn of table TableName. This is the only function that can return all matches
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Alias" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "Needle" "Options" "iMatchNum" "iSubMatchNum"
Alias can be anything that matches with the regex i)(?:(regex)?\s*match|m). E.G. "Regex Match", "RegexMatch", "Match", "M"
iMatchNum can be any positive integer or * representing 'all matches'.
iSubMatchNum can be any positive integer or * representing 'all matches'.
If iMatchNum = 1 then the 1st match will be returned
If iMatchNum = 2 then the 2nd match will be returned
If iMatchNum = * then all matches will be returned seperated by a |
If iSubMatchNum = 0 then the whole pattern is returned
If iSubMatchNum = 1 then the 1st captured subpatterns is returned
If iSubMatchNum = 2 then the 2nd captured subpatterns is returned
If iSubMatchNum = * then all captured subpatterns are returned seperated by ";"
Regex Replace reads all data from the column InputColumn of table TableName, uses RegEx to find the needle specified, replaces this needle given the replacement specified, and returns the found data to the column OutputColumn of table TableName.
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Alias" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "Needle" "Options" "Replacement"
Alias can be anything that matches with the regex i)(?:(regex)?\s*replace|r). E.G. Regex Replace, Replace , R
Replacement is the string to be substituted for each match, which is plain text (not a regular expression). It may include backreferences like $1, which brings in the substring from Haystack that matched the first subpattern. The simplest backreferences are $0 through $9, where $0 is the substring that matched the entire pattern, $1 is the substring that matched the first subpattern,
To convert the case of a subpattern, follow the $ with one of the following characters: U or u (uppercase), L or l (lowercase), T or t (title case, in which the first letter of each word is capitalized but all others are made lowercase). For example, both $U1 and $U{1} transcribe an uppercase version of the first subpattern.
Nonexistent backreferences and those that did not match anything in Haystack -- such as one of the subpatterns in "(abc)|(xyz)" -- are transcribed as empty strings.
Regex format takes the first match found given by needles and reformats it with the pattern specified by sFormat. sFormat follows the same rules as "Replacement" of RegexReplace above.
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Alias" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "Needle" "Options" "sFormat"
Alias can be anything that matches with the regex i)(?:(regex)?\s*format|f). E.G. "Regex Format", "RegexFormat", "Format", "F"
Regex Count counts and returns the number of occurrences of a pattern.
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Alias" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "Needle" "Options"
Alias can be anything that matches with the regex (?:(regex)?\s*(get\s*)?c(ou)?nt|c). E.G. "Regex Count", "Count", "Cnt", "C"
Regex Position returns the Nth position of a pattern.
MI_RegexEngine.exe "Alias" "TableName" "InputColumn" "OutputColumn" "Needle" "Options" "N"
Alias can be anything that matches with the regex (?:(regex)?\s*(get\s*)?pos(ition)?|p). E.G. "Regex Position", "Position", "Pos", "P"
N - Default = 1
See table of: https://autohotkey.com/docs/misc/RegEx-QuickRef.htm#Options