Re: Question about replacing words
This WebDNA talk-list message is from 1998
It keeps the original formatting.
numero = 19685
interpreted = N
texte = >>What we really need is a tool that's designed specifically to replace a >>character string with a replacement string -- with optional case matching >>... >If it were easy we would have done it long ago. If it's a feature many of us need -- and if we have needed it for such a long time -- the relative difficulty of implementing it only suggests to me that it should have been high on the priority list quite some time ago, so that it would *eventually* get finished ...Avoiding it simply because it's not easy doesn't seem like a very good reason to pass it over in favor of 'easier' features. After all, what if we don't need these 'easier' features? It seems as if a text string replacement tool is far more useful tool than things like [listwords] or [!] or [capitalize] to name a few ...I'm not complaining about the addition of these new features, so don't get me wrong -- after all, ANY new feature is bound to help *someone*. But it sure seem as if implementing a text string replacement feature has never been much of a priority at PCS ... :(Someone said NetForms does it, or did they say NetCloak? Anyways, lots of other software does it: Panorama, FileMaker, BBEdit, Tex-Edit, etc. etc. Tthere are many software products that do it. Is there something in the existing webcatalog code that needs to be changed in a BIG way in order to make this feature a practical reality some day?Alex just came up with a theoretical solution to the problem using [middle] and [text]. While on the surface it seems as if his solution will work, there's another side to the issue. On a practical basis, there's a LOT of webdna code to be processed by webcatalog in order to get it to work, even with a single match string replacement -- because of the looping required in order to process ALL occurrences of a match string in series, one at a time.Even then, there's a potentially *deadly* problem in this approach that will very likely crash the server or freeze webcatalog. (This *problem just occurred to me this morning, Alex, thus the reason I didn't mention it yesterday when you called) ...For example, if Alex's technique is used to replace a short string with a longer string that FULLY CONTAINS the short string -- if String A is replaced with String A and String B, for example -- then the recursive nature of the looping action will actually force webcat into an endless loop and probably make it crash, killing itself and possibly the entire server.Even if this particular *endless loop* situation is successfully avoided, Alex's approach would seem to be cumbersome at best when it comes to replacing multiple match strings -- because several nested contexts would have to be used in series, one for each match string to be replaced. And this would probably make the webdna coding a nightmare ... but at least Alex's approach is *theoretically* possible, which is far better than anything we've had up until now. Grant, I have a question ...If the 'specialconversions.db/convertchars' approach can find all the occurrences of a single character and replace them all with a different character (or string of characters), then what are some of the actual problems or difficulties you are encountering or imagining when thinking about expanding the 'specialconversions.db' approach to find and replace a multi-character string instead of a single character?Is there some other approach to this problem that would be better -- or more practical -- than expanding the 'specialconversions.db/convertchars' capabilities?Sincerely, Ken Grome 808-737-6499 WebDNA Solutions mailto:ken@webdna.net http://www.webdna.net
Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:
>>What we really need is a tool that's designed specifically to replace a >>character string with a replacement string -- with optional case matching >>... >If it were easy we would have done it long ago. If it's a feature many of us need -- and if we have needed it for such a long time -- the relative difficulty of implementing it only suggests to me that it should have been high on the priority list quite some time ago, so that it would *eventually* get finished ...Avoiding it simply because it's not easy doesn't seem like a very good reason to pass it over in favor of 'easier' features. After all, what if we don't need these 'easier' features? It seems as if a text string replacement tool is far more useful tool than things like
[listwords] or
[!] or
[capitalize] to name a few ...I'm not complaining about the addition of these new features, so don't get me wrong -- after all, ANY new feature is bound to help *someone*. But it sure seem as if implementing a text string replacement feature has never been much of a priority at PCS ... :(Someone said NetForms does it, or did they say NetCloak? Anyways, lots of other software does it: Panorama, FileMaker, BBEdit, Tex-Edit, etc. etc. Tthere are many software products that do it. Is there something in the existing webcatalog code that needs to be changed in a BIG way in order to make this feature a practical reality some day?Alex just came up with a theoretical solution to the problem using
[middle] and
[text]. While on the surface it seems as if his solution will work, there's another side to the issue. On a practical basis, there's a LOT of webdna code to be processed by webcatalog in order to get it to work, even with a single match string replacement -- because of the looping required in order to process ALL occurrences of a match string in series, one at a time.Even then, there's a potentially *deadly* problem in this approach that will very likely crash the server or freeze webcatalog. (This *problem just occurred to me this morning, Alex, thus the reason I didn't mention it yesterday when you called) ...For example, if Alex's technique is used to replace a short string with a longer string that FULLY CONTAINS the short string -- if String A is replaced with String A and String B, for example -- then the recursive nature of the looping action will actually force webcat into an endless loop and probably make it crash, killing itself and possibly the entire server.Even if this particular *endless loop* situation is successfully avoided, Alex's approach would seem to be cumbersome at best when it comes to replacing multiple match strings -- because several nested contexts would have to be used in series, one for each match string to be replaced. And this would probably make the webdna coding a nightmare ... but at least Alex's approach is *theoretically* possible, which is far better than anything we've had up until now. Grant, I have a question ...If the 'specialconversions.db/convertchars' approach can find all the occurrences of a single character and replace them all with a different character (or string of characters), then what are some of the actual problems or difficulties you are encountering or imagining when thinking about expanding the 'specialconversions.db' approach to find and replace a multi-character string instead of a single character?Is there some other approach to this problem that would be better -- or more practical -- than expanding the 'specialconversions.db/convertchars' capabilities?Sincerely, Ken Grome 808-737-6499 WebDNA Solutions mailto:ken@webdna.net http://www.webdna.net
Kenneth Grome
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