Hi,
I often need to put a forward delete in front of a colon, to bring the below line up to meet it. For example-
Profile ID:
31340425
Account ID:
2370730
convert to this
Profile ID: 31340425
Account ID: 2370730
I cannot seem to figure this out with search and replace.
This does not work...
Try this instead:
:%LineFeed%
:%Space%
(Looks for colon followed by line feed and replaces with colon followed by a space - to match the example you showed.)
And why would you think it would? There is no text token for forward delete – forward delete is an action not a token.
Tokens [Keyboard Maestro Wiki]
@Zabobon is on the right track, but in my experience it's really common for something like this:
Profile ID:
31340425
To actually be:
Profile ID:<one or more whitespace characters>
31340425
So I tend to use a regular expression instead of literal text replacement:
Search:
(?m)(?<=:)\h*$\R(?=\d+)
Replace:
%Space%
Depending upon the task I frequently preprocess the data to remove trailing whitespace characters, non-breaking-spaces, and other issues.
This practice has saved me more than a few headaches.
When pulling data from unknown sources you also have to watch out for unusual invisible characters – those can really get you chasing your tail trying to figure out why your search/replace patterns aren't working...
Sage advise from a Sage.
Thanks, ccstone and @kcwhat
Forgive me, I'm no coder. I use KM to overcome RSI from typing and mousing. KM really saved my career. Anyways...
Here is what I tried, following your advice (probably incorrectly).
and
Thanks for taking the time to help an ignorant stranger!!!
Change your Search for area to Regular Expression (ignoring case). @ccstone Indicated this in his suggestion.
KC
@Ihventura_Hutch - No problem. It should work for you. When you confirm it, please mark @ccstone’s post as the solution.
Take care,
KC
Wooot! That works perfectly. This really saves me a lot of time. I am so grateful! Thanks, @ccstone !!
