How to apply regex search / replace to every line on clipboard?

Questions & Suggestions
1

I am trying to do a regex search/replace on all hits in my clipboard. I saw in the docs that I need to do a forEach action, which I've tried, but it's still not working right.

I'm using KM 9.0.6.

Here's a simple example: I want to remove the '- ' from the front of all lines of text. i.e., I want to transform this:
image

Into this:
image

But what's happening is that only the first match is getting fixed, like so:
image

Here's my KM action—what am I doing wrong?
image

2

Your example of results ADDS an extra line after line 1. Is that intentional?

Assuming all you want to do is replace the leading "- " on each line with nothing, then that is quite easy.
You do NOT need a For Each Action. Just one Search and Replace action:

Search (using Regular Expression) For:
(?m)^-\h*

Replace With:
(leave it blank)

For Regex Details, see: regex101: build, test, and debug regex

Here's the KM Action:

image

ACTION: Search and Replace Using RegEx Action (v9.1d1)

Download

Search and Replace.kmactions (551 B)
NOTE: Before you import this ACTION, open the Macro and select the Action after which you want this action.
Double-clicking or Importing an Action will insert the Action just below the selected Action in the current Macro being edited.

Example Results

image

3

In terms of getting the For Each approach to work:

The point to remember is that at each stage, the forEach variable just contains a copy of that one line.

It's not a reference to the original line (just a separate copy), and no changes you make to the content of that variable will be copied back to the source line.

All you need to do is:

  • start the process with an additional accumulator variable which is initially empty
  • with each forEach line, append the modified copy, followed by a linefeed, to the accumulator.
  • at the end, when the bullet-stripped accumulator is built, update the clipboard from it.

Clipboard lines all stripped of any dash-space bullet prefix.kmmacros (21.6 KB)

image
image1246×2392 320 KB

4

FWIW it's also, of course, the kind of thing that you could do with a script pasted into a Keyboard Maestro Execute JavaScript for Automation action:

(() => {
    'use strict';

    // main :: IO ()
    const main = () => {
        const
            sa = standardSEAdditions(),

            bulletStripped = unlines(
                lines(sa.theClipboard())
                .map(
                    x => x.startsWith('- ') ? (
                        x.slice(2)
                    ) : x
                )
            );
        return (
            sa.setTheClipboardTo(bulletStripped),
            bulletStripped
        );
    };

    // ----------------------- JXA -----------------------

    // standardSEAdditions :: () -> Application
    const standardSEAdditions = () =>
        Object.assign(Application('System Events'), {
            includeStandardAdditions: true
        });

    // --------------------- GENERIC ---------------------
    // https://github.com/RobTrew/prelude-jxa

    // lines :: String -> [String]
    const lines = s =>
        // A list of strings derived from a single
        // string delimited by newline and or CR.
        0 < s.length ? (
            s.split(/[\r\n]/)
        ) : [];

    // unlines :: [String] -> String
    const unlines = xs =>
        // A single string formed by the intercalation
        // of a list of strings with the newline character.
        xs.join('\n');

    // MAIN ---
    return main();
})();
5

Thank you so much, @ComplexPoint and @JMichaelTX! Solved. This is very helpful. I went with the simple regex using \m but seeing how a more complex forEach works was also useful.

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