regex help - do not match optional character

[olivia solis]

Hi all,

I'm trying to normalize a lot of manually entered dates, including changing "c." --> "circa". The "c." may appear anywhere in the date. I'm using a filter with regular expression checked. The problem here is that a lot of the dates include "Dec." as well. I'm probably missing something obvious, but how do I match:

c. 1985

1985 to c. 1990

But not

Dec. 1998

There are definitely some instances of dates like

c. Dec. 1998

But I'll deal with those limited use cases when I get to them.

[^e]*c\. won't work in cases where the "c." is at the beginning of the expression.

Thanks,

Olivia 

[olivia solis]

^^ Correction:

[^e]c\.

won't work.

[Owen Stephens]

Hi Olivia,

Would:

(^|\s)c\.

work (i.e. either start of string or space before the 'c.')

[John Little]

I suggest a text filter on "dec. " or "Dec. " and then invert (or exclude) those rows.  Then the normalize your the target "c."

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[olivia solis]

Thank you, Owen! Yes, that works. And holy moly, John, you just opened my eyes to a new world. I never knew you could use an invert on a text filter.

[Owen Stephens]

On Friday, December 15, 2017 at 4:31:13 PM UTC, olivia solis wrote:

Thank you, Owen! Yes, that works.

 No problem!

And holy moly, John, you just opened my eyes to a new world. I never knew you could use an invert on a text filter.

That's probably because it's only just been added - new in 2.8!

Owen

[John Little]

So nice to get a "holy moly" on this fine day -- glad I could open that feature up to you.  But, really good catch Owen!  It's important to note that "invert" is a new 2.8 feature -- thanks to the ongoing hard work of the OR developer community.  

I've used the "include/exclude" feature of facets so much that adding the "invert" feature not only made great sense (!!) but I already forgot "invert" hasn't been there always, that it is a new 2.8 feature.  

[olivia solis]

Great idea!