Deleting paragraphs in TextEdit

I'm not sure either, but this seems to work:

set input_paragraph_list to every paragraph of this_text

set output_paragraph_list to {}

repeat with this_paragraph in input_paragraph_list

try

if first character of this_paragraph is "{" then

set end of output_paragraph_list to (this_paragraph as string)

end if

on error --If there isn't any character

end try

end repeat

set my text item delimiters to return

set the_result to (output_paragraph_list as string)

I expect it could be improved.

Jeremy

The following script should do the trick:

tellapplication "TextEdit"

open"/Users/John/Desktop/map.rtf"

delete (paragraphs of front document whose character 1 is not "{")

end tell

Message was edited by: Pierre L.

The main reason why your script is not working is that you can't delete an item of a list using “delete”.

set aList to {"abc", "def", "ghi"}

deleteitem 2 of aList

--> error "Can’t make \"def\" into type reference." number -1700 from "def" toreference

However, you could have made a new list as follows:

set the paragraph_list to every paragraph of this_text

set new_list to {}

repeat with i from 1 to the count of paragraphs of this_text

set this_paragraph to itemi of the paragraph_list

try

if first character of this_paragraph is "{" then

copy this_paragraph to the end of new_list

end if

end try

end repeat

new_list

Message was edited by: Pierre L.

TextEdit has never (to my knowledge) been capable of handling huge files.

Out of curiosity, are these actually rich text files or are they plain text files that are merely saved as rich text? AppleScript is limited in its rich text handling abilities; if they are plain text files it opens a lot more doors.

Try this:

set theNewText to ""

tell application "TextEdit"

set theText to text of front document

repeat with k from 1 to (count paragraphs of theText)

set thisParagraph to paragraphk of theText

if (length of thisParagraph > 0) ¬

and (character 1 of thisParagraph is "{") then

set theNewText to theNewText & thisParagraph & return

end if

end repeat

end tell

theNewText

Message was edited by: Pierre L. (faster version)

because I'm the one who raised the plain text point, I'm going to through this non-TextEdit version into the pool. you can see how to structure the IF statement as well if you want to use your version.

set filePath to "/users/yourname/path/to/fileToMangle"

set originalTextParas to paragraphs of (readfilePath)

set newTextParas to {}

repeat with thisPara in originalTextParas

if length of thisPara > 0 and thisPara begins with "{" and thisPara does not contain "\"Water\":\"0\"" then

set end of newTextParas to thisPara

end if

end repeat

set {oldTID, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, return}

set newText to newTextParas as text

set my text item delimiters to oldTID

set fp to open for accessfilePath with write permission

writenewTexttofp

close accessfp

Three questions:

1. What's the reason of the “set my text item delimiters to return” line of code?

2. Could you state in plain words what you want to obtain with “offset of "\"Water\":\"0\"" in thisParagraph is 0”?

3. Do you really want to add the new text to the end of your already extremely long initial text, or rather to the end of a new front document?

Hello

I doubt it is practical to edit 20MB text file by AppleScripting TextEdit.app.

Here's a version to use textutil(1) and perl(1) via 'do shell script' command.

textutil(1) is used to convert rtf to txt as is needed and Perl does the edit.

It will keep only paragraphs starting with { and containing "Word":"0".

It is assumed that text is in UTF-8.

set infile to "/Users/John/Desktop/map.rtf"
set outfile to "/Users/John/Desktop/map_processed.txt"

set sh to "textutil -convert txt -stdout " & infile's quoted form & " \\
| perl -CSD -e 'while (<>) { print if / ^{ .* \"Water\":\"0\" /ox; }' > " & outfile's quoted form

do shell script sh

Regards,

H

Oops

I misread your intention.

Here's the code to keep paragraphs starting with { and NOT containing "Water":"0".

set infile to "/Users/John/Desktop/map.rtf"
set outfile to "/Users/John/Desktop/map_processed.txt"

set sh to "textutil -convert txt -stdout " & infile's quoted form & " \\
| perl -CSD -e 'while (<>) { print if /^{/o && !/\"Water\":\"0\"/o; }' > " & outfile's quoted form

do shell script sh

Regards,

H

In plain words, I want to delete a paragraph if it contais the words "Water":"0" That's why I tried to use 'if offset=0', Am I wrong? (again? 😀)

You were nearly right! See below:

set theNewText to ""

tell application "TextEdit"

set theText to text of front document

repeat with k from 1 to (count paragraphs of theText)

set thisParagraph to paragraphk of theText

if (length of thisParagraph > 0) ¬

and ((offset of "\"Water\":\"0\"" in thisParagraph) is 0) ¬

and (character 1 of thisParagraph is "{") then

set theNewText to theNewText & thisParagraph & return

end if

end repeat

makenewdocumentat front with properties {text:theNewText}

activate

end tell

don't use this:

((offsetof "\"Water\":\"0\"" inthisParagraph) is 0)

use:

(thisParagraph does not contain "\"Water\":\"0\"")

much cleaner syntax.

Twtwtw is right!

Moreover,

(thisParagraphdoes notcontain "\"Water\":\"0\"")

seems to be very much faster than

((offsetof "\"Water\":\"0\"" inthisParagraph) is 0)