Substitute Duplicate Whole Words

[dztrucktion]

I have a calculation field that takes a Main Genre and a Sub Genre and combines them together in a field. Because of character limitations, I like to remove any recurring instance of words that are already present in the Main Genre field, but also any repeat of of words used in Sub Genre aswell.

Example:

mainGenre = Rock

subGenre = Heavy Rock, Rock-Rap, Pop Rock, Rocktronica, Hybrid Rock, Hybrid Dramatic, Heavy Rock, Heavy Metal

combinedGenre = Rock | Heavy Rap Pop Rocktronica, Hybrid, Hybrid Dramatic, Heavy, Heavy Metal

I have been using

Let([

mainGenre = metadata_genreMain & ¶;

SubGenre = metadata_genreMainSub

];



Substitute( mainGenre; ¶ ;"") & " | " & Substitute( subGenre; [mainGenre; ""]; [¶; " "])

)

It has been working well, essentially I just added the carriage return to only pull out whole words - in the case of "Rocktronica", I would only return "tronica".

The question is, what can I add to scrub the duplicate words such as "Hybrid, Hybrid..." & "Heavy, Heavy..." after "Rock" has been removed?

Thanks,

d

[comment]

You would need a custom function or a looping script to go over the list word-by-word. Are you sure this is something you really want to do, though? It seems to me that the result contains markedly less information than the input; are "character limitations" a good reason for such a thing?

[dztrucktion]

Custom function or looping script would be fine. Ultimately, I am pushing these character limited fields out to AIF files' ID3 tags and then to iTunes which has a very strict character limits. While the examples given don't have a super huge list my character limit is 64 - so if I can get rid of redundant words I am able to include better more rich metadata. Also, because of the way that iTunes search works, I am able to find "Hybrid Rock" tracks even if "Hybrid" and "Rock" aren't congruent.

I will say that I have built a script that pulls data from a whole slew of calculated fields and "push" them into the appropriate target fields in iTunes. So (and I have no experience with Custom Functions) I would imagine that if pointed in the right direction, I could use this calc field (combinedGenre) as a starting point and just add some script steps during the push.

I really appreciate the help.

Thanks,

d

[comment]

How about this way?

CompressGenresCF.zip

[dztrucktion]

Wow, this works like a charm!

I would like to know what I can do to insert a separator - namley, a bar | - to separate the mainGenre from the subGenre?

Thanks again!!!

[comment]

You could change the first part of the function to:

Case (



not IsEmpty ( main ) ;

CompressGenres ( RightWords ( main ; WordCount ( main ) - 1 ) ; sub ; List ( result ; LeftWords ( main ; 1 ) ; Case ( WordCount ( main ) = 1 ; "|" ) ) ) ;



not IsEmpty ( sub ) ;

...

)

Again, I am not sure how much sense this makes - given that the main genre may contain more than one word.

[Lee Smith]

Why not just add this to the field calc?

Genre & "|¶" & CompressGenres ( Genre ; SubGenres ; "" )

HTH

Lee

[dztrucktion]

Thanks, and this works - I will say that I am not seeing any complication with multiple word mainGenres, except that it seems to still put the | bar in when there is no subGenre. Not a big deal, I have a second calc field that strips that before the push.

But...

In the case of R&B it is removing the & symbol. I have tried fussing with it, but the only thing that I have been able to come up with is using the second calc field to replace "r b" with "R&B" - not nearly as elegant. Any tips?

Thanks,

d

[dztrucktion]

Why not just add this to the field calc?

 Genre & "|¶" & CompressGenres ( Genre ; SubGenres ; "" ) 

HTH Lee

Thanks for the input. Wouldn't this cause Genre to show up twice because the Custom Function already returns the Genre?

[Lee Smith]

Yes, but it appears to be doing that anyway unless I'm missing something.

BTW, the pipe character blends in too much for me, I would add a space in the Calc " |¶", or use a character like ~ (the Tilde)

[comment]

it seems to still put the | bar in when there is no subGenre.

That should be a rather trivial adjustment, I think:

... Case ( WordCount ( main ) = 1 and not IsEmpty ( sub ) ; "|" ) ...

In the case of R&B it is removing the & symbol.

That's because the "&" symbol is a word delimiter, and "R&B" are two words - same as "Hip-Hop" or "Rock&Roll" are. Perhaps you could substitute it with a non-breaking character such as "ø" before sending the text to the custom function, and substitute it back to "&" in the result.

[comment]

it appears to be doing that anyway

I should hope not.

[dztrucktion]

I just wanted to say thank you this worked perfectly.

d