oh I seeeee, so it's it's to hand the value/calculation back to the thing that called it.
(btw I have searched YouTube for video tutorials on subroutines but no-one has covered it yet. I also sub to ScreenCastsOnline and they haven't done subroutines either.) (I am very much an audiovisual leaner)
local_Result was there from ComplexPoints' example.
I don't actually want to use that variable. I would ideally like the result be saved to the original variable.
(to recap: I am passing a string through a chain of filters, one by one. I don't want to create a new variable at any time.)
instance_ShortProductTitle)In the above screenshots (Macro2), the variable shown is instance_ShortProductTitle. It will be the same variable throughout the entire "chain".
instance_BrandName)Right now , I call Macro2 from Macro1. But in order to do it for more variables, I must duplicate Macro2 to make Macro3 ... and then laboriously go down and change every single action to the next Variable (e.g. instance_BrandName)
This is inefficient because if I tweak some of the filters in Macro2, I must then also make the exact same edits in Macro 3
(BTW, if it's not clear Macro1 is the main macro. It is the one that will call Macro2, Macro3, Macro 4 etc)
i am trying to do this with my limited understanding.
This would stop me from having to make:
Each would be identical apart from the variable being filtered.
Building on what I wrote in my last reply, you should, in itself, be able to do what you ask here, if you:
%Variable%instance_Title% (to return this variables value)%Variable%instance_Title%I am not by my computer now, and without testing I must admit I am not experienced enough with instance-variables to be sure*, but I think the instance variable should “return” the value from the sub macro, also without the Return Result Action.
However, if I read your macro correctly, it looks to me like nothing of this would work, as you, in your calling macros Execute Subroutine Action, are defining your instance_Title (as well as variables instance_Brand and instance_Variant) to be overwritten by the empty value from the local_Source variable. Removing %Variable%local_Source% from these three text fields seems like a good thing to do, as you are not defining that variable anywhere. If you instead add %Variable%instance_Title% to the text field labeled “_Title” you would send the value of the instance_Title through to the Subroutine. (But as written above, if I understand instance-variables correctly, I think sending this value to the Subroutine was already done by defining the variable with the instance-prefix, making it shared with any subroutine within the same executing instance).
*not really as experienced with Subroutines as I’d like either, so someone must correct me if they spot anything wrong or lacking in my understanding/explanation, but I hope/believe what I’ve write above to be true
For context, the instance_Title is scraped from an open Amazon Item page somewhere (using JavaScript in front browser window action)
I want to be able to pass this string - or any string - typically a sentence long, but could be just a word, or a few words, through this chain of search-and-replace filters.
A different Amazon page could be loaded a few seconds later. So it needs to happen fast and smoothly.
Suppose instance_Title was this product name:
Light Bulb for Women
As it is passes down the 'chain' it is convereted to
Light 💡for Women
and then
Light 💡 ♀
This is due to the find-and-replace filters (using RegEx) that I've shown.
I don't want to introduce any new variable names if I can just save to source
There are two different approaches here:
Debugging typically involves tracking down a confusion about what the value of a mutable name really is at a given point.
Avoiding mutability, and using constants wherever possible, turns out, perhaps unexpectedly, to be a very good way of reducing run-time complexity, and keeping well clear of the debug tar-pits.
for future readers: Subroutine to Get The Last Line Containing Specific Text helped me get my head around subroutines a bit more.
Can someone please tell me how I can convert my macro here into a subroutine:
.kmmacros|attachment (76.8 KB)
I'm guessing it's not structured the correct way to be a subroutine, i.e. it's not possible.. reasons:
Save result to would be the same as input)What you have there is:
[(fromPattern, toPattern)]A simpler architecture for it might be:
For Each action over a collection consisting of each line in the list of substitution pairs.Your subroutine could receive two parameters:
Pairs: A Keyboard Maestro %Variable% reference to a text containing one line for each substitution pair.Source: A Keyboard Maestro %Variable% reference to the source text.and it could return an updated (search-replaced) copy of the source text.
To extract the two distinct parts of each one-line (fromPattern, toPattern) pair, you could use a Keyboard Maestro Variable Array, with a specified delimiter character, and a one-based index.
Alternatively, of course, if you only ever use one unchanging substitution sheet, you could: