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replaceString

replaceString ( source : string , oldString : string , newString : string , howMany : integer {, *}) : string

ParameterTypeDescription
sourcestring->Original string
oldStringstring->Characters to replace
newStringstring->Replacement string (if empty string, occurrences are deleted)
howManyinteger->How many times to replace If omitted, all occurrences are replaced
*->If passed: evaluation based on character codes
Resultstring<-Resulting string

Description

replaceString replaces howMany occurrences of oldString in source with newString.

If newString is an empty string (""), replaceString deletes each occurrence of oldString in source.

If howMany is specified, replaceString will replace only the number of occurrences of oldString specified, starting at the first character of source. If howMany is not specified, then all occurrences of oldString are replaced.

If oldString is an empty string, replaceString returns the unchanged source.

By default, the command makes global comparisons that take linguistic particularities and letters that may be written with one or more characters (for example æ = ae) into account. On the other hand, it is not diacritical (a = A, a = à and so on) and does not take "ignorable" characters such as characters whose code < 9 into account (Unicode specification).

To modify this functioning, pass the asterisk as the last parameter. In this case, comparisons will be based on character codes. You must pass the parameter:

  • If you want to replace special characters, used for example as delimiters (Char(1), etc.),
  • If the replacement of characters must be case sensitive and take accented characters into account (a#A, a#à and so on). Note that in this mode, the evaluation does not handle variations in the way words are written.

Example 1

The following example illustrates the use of replaceString. The results, described in the comments, are assigned to the variable vtResult.

 var vtResult, vtOtherVar : string
vtResult = replaceString("Willow"," ll","d") // Result gets "Widow"
vtResult = replaceString("Shout","o","") // Result gets "Shut"
vtResult = replaceString(vtOtherVar,Char(kTab),",",*) // Replaces all tabs in vtOtherVar with commas

Example 2

The following example eliminates CRs and TABs from the text in vtResult:

 var vtResult : string
vtResult = replaceString(replaceString(vtResult,\
Char(kCarriageReturn),"",*),Char(kTab),"",*)

Example 3

The following example illustrates the use of the * parameter in the case of a diacritical evaluation:

 var vtResult : string
vtResult = replaceString("Crème brûlée","Brulee",\
"caramel") //Result gets "Crème caramel"
vtResult = replaceString("Crème brûlée","Brulee",\
"caramel",*) //Result gets "Crème brûlée"

See also

changeString
deleteString
insertString