How to find out what word doesn't start with a "#"?

[blogtom]

Hi,

I need to find out the position in the text for the first word that doesn't contain a leading hashtag (#) - starting from the end of the text.

This is a demo text:

var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here #1remove #2removeme #3removeüäüö

The position would be after the word here.

How do do that?

[Guest · Accepted solution]

For quick and simple code, you can use String methods to get the character index of the "#". Below is an example that gets the index of the space character that is directly in front of the second "#". This code example assumes you are wanting to create a new String that has everything up to the second "#" character.

var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here #1remove #2removeme #3remove";
var index1:int = demoText.indexOf("#");// find first instance of "#" in the String
var index2:int = demoText.indexOf("#", index1 + 1) - 1;// find the index of the space character right before the second instance of "#"
var newText:String = demoText.substring(0, index2);// newText = "hello world #dontremoveme here"

To explain line 3, you are searching for the index of the "#" character starting the search from the index of the first "#" + 1. The "+ 1" is to have the search start after the first "#" character. If you don't have that, you would keep finding the same index value as "index1". The "- 1" at the end is to decrease the index2 value so it will give you index of the space character directly in front of the "#". Line 4 creates a new String starting from the beginning of the original String up to, but not including, the space character in front of the second "#".

If you needed something more complicated than just removing everything after "here" then I would need a different example.

Edit: Here is a link to the AS3 API for the String class. String - Adobe ActionScript® 3 (AS3 ) API Reference

[blogtom]

Many thanks! You saved my weekend!

cheers

[Colin Holgate]

Try this, though I'm sure there will be some problem cases:

var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here #1remove #2removeme #3removeüäüö"

while (demoText.lastIndexOf(" ")==demoText.lastIndexOf(" #")){

  demoText = demoText.slice(0,demoText.lastIndexOf(" "));

}

trace(demoText);

[blogtom]

Hi, Thanks it works great until the first hashtag is in a new line, e.g.;

var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here

#1remove #2removeme #3removeüäüö"

Any ideas how to make it work for that too?

Many thanks

[Colin Holgate]

There may be more problem cases, but try this:

var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here"

//var demoText:String = "hello world #dontremoveme here #1remove #2removeme #3removeüäüö"

if(demoText.split(" #").length > 1){

  while (demoText.lastIndexOf(" ")==demoText.lastIndexOf(" #")){

  demoText = demoText.slice(0,demoText.lastIndexOf(" "));

  }

}

trace(demoText);

[Colin Holgate]

I think I meant:

if(demoText.split(" #").length > 2){