{"id":483,"date":"2012-02-26T11:27:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T19:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=483"},"modified":"2012-02-26T11:30:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T19:30:35","slug":"more-on-my-obsession-with-grep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=483","title":{"rendered":"More on my obsession with GREP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a blog post a few days back, I was confounded by the problem of converting ALL CAPS into lower case letters. Using a Javascript that I licensed from a Danish programmer, I was able to make the case change, but the GREP search was also converting articles like I<\/em> and A<\/em> into lower case, and that was creating a new (but easily soluble) problem.<\/p>\n

One of my former students, Jeff Bauer, sent me a fix that he found on a programmer\u2019s web site. It solves a related problem using the same Javascript: not changing Roman Numerals into lower-case letters. Curiously, that solution also solves the articles problem I was having.<\/p>\n

Thank you Jeff for submitting the solution to my problem!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at how it\u2019s done. I had wrestled with this problem, and had failed to find a solution because I do not know how to use \u201cnegative look-aheads\u201d in GREP. I tried, believe me, but I failed to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

The solution Jeff sent is complex but elegant: \\b(?![LXIVCDM]+\\b)([A-Z]{2,})\\b<\/p>\n

Huh? This uses both a negative look-ahead, and a little-documented GREP feature that says \u201cthis has to be at least two characters in length. It\u2019s the part in series braces {}.<\/p>\n

Here is a diagram of how it works:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My test document is a page of InDesign-generated pseudo-Latin into which I inserted a handful of all-caps examples, as well as a few cap-I and cap-A situations. I also threw-in Roman numerals to test the advertised function of the string.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Above: the text before I ran the search for all-caps.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The search string works fine, except for one exception where it fails with a string of all-caps letters preceded by a hyphen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Above is the same text after I ran the script with the new GREP string. Notice the single word that is still capitalized, a compound word.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s my next<\/em> challenge.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing a new book about printing processes and prepress. Click on the link below to give me your e-mail address, and I will let you know when the book is published (target date is March, 2012).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a blog post a few days back, I was confounded by the problem of converting ALL CAPS into lower case letters. Using a Javascript that I licensed from a Danish programmer, I was able to make the case change, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imposition-and-pagination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}