Regular Expressions (Regexes) may be used to manipulate captured data in EzeScan DESKTOP. For example - formatting dates; removing unwanted characters; replacing data with something else.
Regexes have some common anchors, character classes, quantifiers etc. Here are a few:
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* |
Identifies that there can be none, one or more of the preceding item
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+
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identifies that there must be one or more of the preceding item
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^ |
Is for the start of the search text, e.g. ^0* would find leading 0's
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. |
Is used to match any character
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$ |
Is for the end of the search text
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\b |
Is used to identify the start and end of a word
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Is the OR separator this means we can look for multiple words
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\ |
Is an escape character. It can be used to remove a character that is used in regex codes
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These are a few examples of Regexes commonly used within EzeScan:
TIP: The REGEXs in this section may be copied and pasted straight into the EzeScan REGEX editor. Drag your mouse across the values from the first " to the last "
for example "^0*(\d*)-(\d*)( - .*)","$1$2$3" The blue text represents the values to be replaced and the red text represents what the text is being replaced with the blue text.
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Replace the 3rd and 6th character with a /
This is handy if an OCR has picked up the / in a date as a 1 e.g. 12112112 will become 12/12/12
Regex = "^(..).(..).","$1/$2/" -
Keep the first value where it is delimited with two pipes (|)
e.g. PO1234||0||1 will become P01234
Regex = "^([^\|]+).*$","$1" -
This will add a .00 if there is no decimal value. If there is a decimal value it will leave as is
e.g. 100 will become 100.00 but 100.45 would remain as 100.45
Regex = "(?!\s-?\d+\.\d+|^-?\d+\.\d+)(\s-?\d+\b|^-?\d+\b)","$1.00" -
Clear out the whole value if it ends with a \
e.g. "ezescan\" will become blank (null) whereas "ezescan" will remain as "ezescan"
Regex = "^.*\\+$","" -
Set a value to error if a numeric value has a minus
e.g. 1 or 1.00 will be OK whereas -1 or -1.00 will change the value to error
Regex = "-[0-9]+\.?[0-9]*","error" -
Remove the first two characters out of a value
e.g. "BA123456" will become "123456"
Regex="^..",""
Tip - add more dots to remove more characters -
Convert a HP RM/TRIM KFI browse value to just output the first name and last name
e.g. "Citizen, John (Mr) -lu 1660" will become "Jon Citizen"
Regex = "-(lu [0-9]+)",""," *([(][^()]*[)])","","([^,]+),([^,]+)","$2$1","^ *","" -
To remove the word VIC and any words after it
e.g. "1 Smith St VIC" will become "1 Smith St"
Regex = "^(.*)\sVIC\s.*$","$1"
Note - Change the value VIC to NSW or QLD etc for other states
Suggested Regex Resources
If you are new to using Regexes we suggest you take a look at these resources on the internet.
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http://www.cheatography.com/davechild/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions/
Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet by Dave Child - A quick reference guide for regular expressions (regex), including symbols, ranges, grouping, assertions and some sample patterns to get you started. -
http://www.regexbuddy.com/
Learn, Create, Understand, Test, Use and Save Regular Expressions with RegexBuddy
You could buy a copy of RegexBuddy from the program's Authors.-
Install and license it onto your PC where EzeScan is installed.
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Start EzeScan & edit a KFI field → use one of our Regex Edit buttons to start up our 'Edit Regex' form. For example, the window below appears when working with a KFI Discovery field.
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Then press the 'Editor' button (if it's grayed out tick the 'Use' button below it to enable it).
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Ezescan will launch RegexBuddy if you have it installed on your PC.
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Any regex entered into RegexBuddy will be automatically transferred to the corresponding regex field on the EzeScan DESKTOP Edit Regex form when you close RegexBuddy.
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