Restricting StringSplit to only first occurence of delimeter

[DoomSack]

Hello
        I am trying to split a table and store it in excel. I have been successful in accomplishing the task but with a minor bug.

This is the table 

[0]|
 
[1]|



Brodbeck, Dennis
email@someone.com
+1.123.456.2111
Hollowittz, Inc
Clerk
Harrison
OH
United States

expandcollapse popup

Local $sStt = _ArrayToString($aTableData, ",")

                    Global $fFinalArray = _StringSplitToArray($sStt, @CRLF, 0)
                    _ArryRemoveBlanks($fFinalArray)

                    _Excel_RangeWrite($oWorkbook2, $oWorkbook2.ActiveSheet, $fFinalArray, $cells)



Func _StringSplitToArray($String, $Delimiter, $Flag)
    Dim $Display, $NumCols
    Local $sString1 = StringStripWS($String, 1)
    Local $sString2 = StringStripWS($sString1, 4)
    Local $v = 0
    ;---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ;Lets convert a comma delimited string into a single dimension array
    ;---------------------------------------------------------------------
    $Columns = StringSplit($sString2, $Delimiter, $Flag)
    Local $sStt1 = _ArrayToString($Columns, ",")
    $Columns1 = StringSplit($sStt1, ",", 0)
    Local $sStt2 = _ArrayToString($Columns1, ",", 2, 11)

    $Columns2 = StringSplit($sStt2, ",", 0)

    $NumCols = $Columns2[0]
    Dim $array[2][$Columns2[0]]
    For $i = 1 To $Columns2[0]
        $array[1][$i - 1] = $Columns2[$i]
    Next
    ;---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ;Display comma delimited string to a multidimensional Array
    ;---------------------------------------------------------------------
        For $j = 1 To $NumCols
        $Display = $Display & "array[1][" & String($j - 1) & "]" & Chr(9) & " = " & Chr(9) & $array[1][$j - 1] & @CRLF
    Next
    MsgBox(4096, "Your Multidimensional Array", $Display)
    Return $array
EndFunc   ;==>_StringSplitToArray

My problem is that I only want the comma to be separated from first and last name , but not from the company name. And also I am getting the data stored in the 1 index of the array rather than 0. So when i paste into excel there is one empty row after each entry.

Any help would be really appreciated . Thank you .

 

 

Edited March 2, 2016 by DoomSack

[TheSaint]

I'm not certain, because I'm not sure where you are getting the original table from, but it seems to me that you are making this more complex than it needs to be.

I'm failing to see the value of creating a comma delimited string, which you then seem to pull apart.

Is your original table a file or part of a file with many similar entries?

Are the elements the same type in the same positions? Are any ever missing?

From what I can see, a simple FileRead and then StringSplit might setup the basics for all you want.

[DoomSack]

24 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

I'm not certain, because I'm not sure where you are getting the original table from, but it seems to me that you are making this more complex than it needs to be.

I'm failing to see the value of creating a comma delimited string, which you then seem to pull apart.

Is your original table a file or part of a file with many similar entries?

Are the elements the same type in the same positions? Are any ever missing?

From what I can see, a simple FileRead and then StringSplit might setup the basics for all you want.

The array is coming through web scrapping . And that is why so much of code .
I don't think we can use FileRead in my case.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DoomSack

[DoomSack]

@TheSaint   I would love to see a simple version for this code . I am still not so good at coding in autoit . So any help would be great.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DoomSack

[TheSaint]

It seems very convoluted what you are having to do.

What are you doing with all this data? Who is it for?

I am a little concerned that you don't seem have access to the original data.

Do you have permission to use this data ... from those involved?

I say that, because I see there are email addresses and other private data involved.

Even with web scraping, I don't see that you need to do half of what you are doing.

[DoomSack]

5 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

It seems very convoluted what you are having to do.

What are you doing with all this data? Who is it for?

I am a little concerned that you don't seem have access to the original data.

Do you have permission to use this data ... from those involved?

I say that, because I see there are email addresses and other private data involved.

Even with web scraping, I don't see that you need to do half of what you are doing.

I am Sorry . I seem to have leaked info. I have all the permissions required to do that. since I have paid for the account and that is why i get data,I am supposed to this manually, but i think we can automate it .

I have rectified the mistake and updated my question .

Edited March 2, 2016 by DoomSack

[TheSaint]

If that is indeed the case, I am having trouble with why you even need to take the web scraping approach?

Why haven't you been given access to the original database files? They should be far easier to work with.

[DoomSack]

1 minute ago, TheSaint said:

If that is indeed the case, I am having trouble with why you even need to take the web scraping approach?

Why haven't you been given access to the original database files? They should be far easier to work with.

Because I am no coder. I am supposed to copy paste the data into excel files manually. I am trying to reduce my burden here :|

[TheSaint]

The data that is populating the web page(s) you are scraping, must be coming from a database.

So i don't imagine you necessarily need to be a coder to work with it, just as you don't need to be a coder to use Excel.

So I am struggling to understand why you are needing to do things the seemingly hard way?

What is the reason for that?

[DoomSack]

Just now, TheSaint said:

The data that is populating the web page(s) you are scraping, must be coming from a database.

So i don't imagine you necessarily need to be a coder to work with it, just as you don't need to be a coder to use Excel.

So I am struggling to understand why you are needing to do things the seemingly hard way?

What is the reason for that?

If we have the Api and access to db can we directly get the info into excel ? I mean for specified set of persons ? I don't know if that  is easy than automation. because I don't know Java. Perhaps I have to look for different approach.

[TheSaint]

Do you know what type of database is being used?

We have a good range of UDF's and Examples here.

Scraping a web page is like the last thing you try ... when all else has failed.

[DoomSack]

Just now, TheSaint said:

Do you know what type of database is being used?

We have a good range of UDF's and Examples here.

Scraping a web page is like the last thing you try ... when all else has failed.

Hmmm .. Seems so to me. I might have to ask someone from engineering team to do.
Or Do it  Manually

[TheSaint]

Yep, I would advise that.

If you can find out it is XML or SQL etc we have options to suggest.

[DoomSack]

2 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

Yep, I would advise that.

If you can find out it is XML or SQL etc we have options to suggest.

Okay Let me find out. I will reply as soon as I get to know that. I'll leave the website's support team an email now.

[iamtheky]

Can you post a screenshot of the arraydisplay,  or is it really:

element 0 is  single pipe character

element 1 is pipe character, some linefeeds, then a few rows of data?

 

I dont think the arraytostring operations are necessary at all, but let us see the display

Edited March 2, 2016 by iamtheky

[mikell]

Could something like this do the trick ? 

#Include <Array.au3>

Local $table = ["[0]|", _
"", _ 
"[1]|", _ 
"", _ 
"", _ 
"", _ 
"Brodbeck, Dennis", _ 
"email@someone.com", _ 
"+1.123.456.2111", _ 
"Hollowittz, Inc", _ 
"Clerk", _ 
"Harrison", _ 
"OH", _ 
"United States"]

_ArrayDisplay($table)

$string = _ArrayToString($table, @crlf)
$string = StringReplace($string, ", ", @crlf, 1)
$res = StringRegExp($string, '(?m)^[^\[]\N+', 3)
_ArrayDisplay($res)

 

[iamtheky]

or:

#Include <Array.au3>

Local $table = ["[0]|", _
"", _
"[1]|", _
"", _
"", _
"", _
"Brodbeck, Dennis", _
"email@someone.com", _
"+1.123.456.2111", _
"Hollowittz, Inc", _
"Clerk", _
"Harrison", _
"OH", _
"United States"]

$aName = stringsplit($table[6] , "," , 2)
_ArrayConcatenate($aName , $table , 7)
_ArrayDisplay($aName)

 

[TheSaint]

He is scraping the Table text, so not in the condition you both are illustrating.

To my mind, the scrape would be a variable that he could just perform StringSplit on using the @CRLF, then weed out the blanks and then work on line numbers (providing they are always the same of course).

The only tricky bit, is if there is more than one subject in a scrape, which would then require some method of separating each grouping out.

However, I still think it best he avoid scraping in the first place ... it also looks less suspicious ... especially as at the moment it looks all too much like he may be gathering details about people ... perhaps even breached the security of a website to do so.

He may indeed be genuine, and I hope he is, but we all know similar bad stuff goes on all the time, and I for one never wish to support that kind of harvesting.

Edited March 3, 2016 by TheSaint

[DoomSack]

2 hours ago, TheSaint said:

He is scraping the Table text, so not in the condition you both are illustrating.

To my mind, the scrape would be a variable that he could just perform StringSplit on using the @CRLF, then weed out the blanks and then work on line numbers (providing they are always the same of course).

The only tricky bit, is if there is more than one subject in a scrape, which would then require some method of separating each grouping out.

However, I still think it best he avoid scraping in the first place ... it also looks less suspicious ... especially as at the moment it looks all too much like he may be gathering details about people ... perhaps even breached the security of a website to do so.

He may indeed be genuine, and I hope he is, but we all know similar bad stuff goes on all the time, and I for one never wish to support that kind of harvesting.

I assure of no such breaching activity. And thank you for putting me in the right direction, to my surprise there is a way to get the data and the website support team is going to assist me on how to do it.
Thank you all for your replies..

[TheSaint]

That's excellent.

Thanks for letting us know.

P.S. Don't mind me, I am just suspicious by nature ... even of myself.