Find/Replace invisible character

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I want to replace " , " with a line feed (or carriage return, or new paragraph, or whatever you want to call it). According to the Help file, you simply copy the invisible character from the text somewhere and paste it into the Find/Replace window. That's not working for me. How do I do this?

[mr_vodka]

Try running a script with a substitute.

Set Field [ YourField; Substitute ( YourField; " ,"; ¶ ) ]

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

If I could type that paragraph character I probably wouldn't be asking the question. Where did that come from?

[Lee Smith]

It is in the center row of the calculation edit box.

If you were using the Find and Replace window (Menu >> Edit >> Find/Replace), it doesn't work in it. You would need to capture a paragraph or return from a text field or text editor.

HTH

Lee

[fabriceN]

Lee's right (as always). But you can also type it.

On Mac OS X :

alt - §

On Windows :

hold the alt key down while you hit 0, then 1, then 8, then 2. Now whisper your mother's birth name, then your neighbor's pet nickname. Now, release the alt key.

I find it so funny. And they call it an 'operating' system. :

Edited June 8, 2007 by Guest

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Alt+0182 showed the symbol but didn't have any affect on Find/Replace.

How do you capture the invisible character in a text field? That's where I started on this.

[Lee Smith]

It's probably the character that Widows includes with a carriage return. What you might try is to copy the white space between two of your paragraphs in that field. Then paste that in the Find box, and then select a return from a text editor and paste that in the Replace box.

You might have better luck though by seeing what is going on. I would paste the content of the field into a text editor, one that will Show Invisibles including spaces. I use BBEdit and TextWrangler on the Mac, I think the equivalent in window is called TextPad. and it was Free the last I checked. Text editors are a good way to manipulate text documents for import too.

HTH

Lee

[Genx]

Fabrice,

You know whats better than doing that?

Click Start > Run, type charmap, hit enter.

Lol, yeah, well you don't have a windows key :

Edited June 8, 2007 by Guest

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

All I seem to be able to copy is the space after the word right before the carriage return. I've tried copying one carriage return and several, but all it gets is the single space. I've tried it using both FMP and Notepad. I've tried capturing a word on line one, two carriage returns, and a word on line 4, but all it accepts in the Find/Replace window is the first line word and the space after it. When I copy the first line word, two return and the next word and paste that into Word, it pastes everything, but not vice versa.

It seems like someone would have encountered this in the decade or so since this program came out.

[Lee Smith]

If the Find/Replace doesn't work, and it often won't, you will have to use the Replace and Substitution function.

I'm not sure what you are seeing in TextPad, but if you have isolated a record that has this extra/invisible character in it, save a clone of the file, and deleted all of the records except that one record, remove any confidential data, and post your file to the Forum so we can look at and see if we can figure it out for you.

HTH

Lee

[Genx]

Copy and paste to MS word and turn on the dodgey little grammer symbol showers.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

If the Find/Replace doesn't work, and it often won't...

I always appreciate the honest voice of experience.

I've cloned, deleted all but one record, zipped, and attached the file.

Diagnostic_Clone_of_2-2007_LOC_Records.zip

[Lee Smith]

what field is it that has the hidden character?

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I want to replace the string, " , " with a carriage return.

[Lee Smith]

Try:

Substitute ( fldGrantor ; ", " ; "¶" )

You can do this either by using the Main Menu, or the Script step.



Menu is:



Insert your cursor in the field [color:red] fldGrantor

Go to Menu and select Records

Go to the Replace (Cmd =)

Replace by Calculated result

insert the calc into the Edit Box

Substitute ( [color:red]fldGrantor[/color] ; ", " ; "¶" )

Click Replace.



For the Script step, 

Replace Field Contents [ Practice 2  for LO Feb 2006 Index::fldGrantor; Replace with calculation: Substitute ( Practice 2  for LO Feb 2006 

Index::fldGrantor ; ", " ; "¶" ) ] 

[ No dialog ] 

Lee

[color:red]Warning Both of these work on the found set of records, and is not reversible. I would highly recommend that you play with these on a copy of your file.

Edited June 11, 2007 by Guest

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

For the sake of completeness, the string I'm replacing got there by the action of another script. That script concatenated data from two fields with the offending string as a join. I'll look at that script and see if I can fix this up front. I'm just starting this project with about 60 new data files, so now's the time to get it right. Once I get it set up the way I want it, I'll do the actual data conversion. Genx was helpful on a new way to concatenate directly in FMP. I had been using MS Access, and have to continue to use Access for my Access oriented co-workers. I'll be back on that project tomorrow (Monday).

[Lee Smith]

It's too bad that this is a pay to use site. I'm sure you could also use the Web View to grab the data direct to.

Good Luck, and post your script if need help.

Lee

[Fenton]

I said:

From what I can tell that file is UTF-16. And, though FileMaker supports UTF-16 just fine in a field, and uses UTF-16 for Export Field Contents, it does not seem to like it when using Import Folder for text files.

It does not like it, unless you choose UTF-16 (Windows in this case, Little Endian) as the Character set option. Duh to me!

Edited June 13, 2007 by Guest