Removing first 4 Characters from a column along with a special character

[#1]

Hello,

I have a column that is a sample description and there is always a ~numbers before the description that I would like to remove from all rows. Only one row has the "~" in it. For Example.

Sample:

126: Description AB

291: Description XYZ

~619: Description

Is there a JSL script that would remove the "~", first 3-digit numbers, and the ": " (including the space) from all rows within the Sample column? The data I'm looking at always has a3 digit numbers at the front along with the : and space. The problem is removing the ~ from one of the rows.

Appreciate the help

Josh

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Here's one way, essentially trimming the leading space from the last "word," using ":" as a delimiter. There are other ways, including Regex.

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Names Default To Here (1);
//make data table
dt = New Table( "Untitled",
	Add Rows( 3 ),
	New Column( "Sample",
		Character,
		"Nominal",
		Set Values(
			{"126: Description AB", "291: Description XYZ", "~619: Description"}
		)
	)
);
//remove unwanted characters
for each row (dt,
	:Sample = trim (word (-1, :Sample, ":"))
);

[#3]

Hi @Hams,

Since the part you would like to keep is always separated from the rest of the string by a blank space, you can using a recode formula like below to keep all "words" except the first one (which is a mix of characters and numbers but not separated by blank space). You can simply change "Column 1" column name by the column name in which you have the sample description.

Recode(
	:Column 1,
	{Word(
		[2 -1],
		_rcNow,
		Get Whitespace Characters() ||
		Get Punctuation Characters( Exclude Chars( "'-" ) ),
		Unmatched( _rcNow )
	)}
)

Hope this other option will help you,

[#4 · Accepted solution]

There are many different ways of doing this, below is one option using regex

Regex("126: Description AB", "~?\d{3}: (.+)$", "\1");
Regex("291: Description XYZ", "~?\d{3}: (.+)$", "\1");
Regex("~619: Description", "~?\d{3}: (.+)$", "\1");

https://regex101.com/r/nMilGt/1 explains the regex a bit