Fractions in GREP

[Dative]

Is there a 'wildcard' or the equivalent through which I can select all fractions in GREP?

[vinny38]

Hi

You should be more specific about the patterns of what you call "fractions".

Something like this: (a certain number of digits)+(a slash)+(a certain number of digits) maybe? Like 450/50

Or do you have separators? 27/1.5 or 27/1,5? Or even 1(space)500/2 or 5,500.50/3

Or maybe something completely different, possibly built with some math font?

Please provide more details, being as specific as possible (screenshots can also help)

Vinny

[Dative]

Okay so I need to be more specific, what I'm trying to do is find WxH measurements and flip them to HxW.

This is my code so far.

(.+)(~<×~<)(.+)(?=~<in\.)
and change to
$3$2$1

While this finds inches I need to be able to find centimetres as well. This is easy enough to do in two steps but I was hoping there was a more elegant solution with one. The structure of the measurements is always as follows

30 × 29 ⅞ in. (78 × 76 cm)

With the numbers varying obviously.

\d doesn't find fractions in the typeface I'm using because they're an individual glyph rather than composite parts.

I think I need a GREP expression like this (\d+~<(possible fraction))( ~<×~< )(\d~<(possible fraction))(?=~<in\.|~<cm\))

I seem to remember theres a way using a question mark you can say 'this may appear or it may not' so ideally I'd like it to be ?wildcard for fractions.

[Dative]

I should also note there's probably a way to do it without having to denote the fractions, I would just need the 'any character' expression to end at in. otherwise this happens.

[dhafirp16891848]

Try this: (\p{n*}+)(\s×\s)(\p{n*}+\s\p{n*}?)(?=\(?\s?(in|cm))

[vinny38]

Hi

To find your fractions, you can use set of Unicode ranges.

Given this site: Searching in Unicode character names for fraction​, there are two sets of fractions that could be used to reach fractions (should be tested):

U00BC to U00BE and U2153 to U215E

Grep query for Unicode range is like this : [\x{Unicode}-\x{Unicode}]

So in your case, [\x{00BC}-\x{00BE}\x{2153}-\x{215E}] should catch your fractions.

Please notice I've also used the Unicode search pattern to get the multiplication sign.

Search:

([\d~<\x{00BC}-\x{00BE}\x{2153}-\x{215E}]+)(~<\x{00D7}~<)([\d~<\x{00BC}-\x{00BE}\x{2153}-\x{215E}]+)(?=~<in\.|~<cm\))

Replace:

$3$2$1

Now, this is very verbose and not very elegant

Maybe Grep enthusiasts (pkahrel​, Obi-wan Kenobi​, and many more) could come up with a better query.

Hope that helps anyway

Vinny

[Peter Kahrel]

Nice one, vinny38​. But you can match fractions with the Unicode property \p{Other_number} (or \p{No} in its abbreviated form). But unfortunately you can't use Unicode properties in character classes, so that [\d\.\p{No}] doesn't work. So you'd get something like this:

((?:\d[\d.]+)(?:\s\p{No})?)   // A digit followed more digits or dots, maybe followed by a space and an 'other' number.

\s×\s

((?:\d[\d.]+)(?:\s\p{No})?)  // Another number

(?=\s(in\.|cm))

It's not entirely clear which one bends the mind more . . .

Peter

[vinny38]

Thanks a lot for your answer Peter,

I've seen this \p{No} property in dhafirp16891848's answer but couldn't figure out what it was.

Much more clear now, although I have no idea on how we could figure that fractions are "other numbers". But that's a specialist call.

Also not forgetting about possible dots is definitely a good idea ^^

Nice stuff...

[Peter Kahrel]

The Unicode properties aren't documented in InDesign itself. The Find/Change dialog's flyout you can use to insert codes is pathetic, many codes are missing.

This script corrects that and adds a few useful things: http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/grep_classes.html

P.

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Hi,

Try:

Find:  (\d+.+?)(~<×~<)((?1))(?=~S(in\.|cm))

Replace by:  $3$2$1

(^/)

[dhafirp16891848]

Try this code: (\d+\.\d+)|[/\d]|\p{no}