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[Mike48]

My library includes many tracks with titles like

Trio Sonata for organ No. 3 in D minor, BWV 527 (BC J3): Adagio e dolce

from which I would like to remove (BC J3) and the preceding space.

The material after "BC" differs from track to track, but there is always a closing ")".

My impression is that the only way to use wildcards in MC expressions is with regular expressions and the regex() function.  So I wrote this:

=replace([name],Regex([name],/ /(BC.+/),1))

which I thought would remove that bit, but instead it removes everything after the "(".

I am baffled. Help will be appreciated, to say the least!

[MrC]

Try this:

   =if(Regex([Name], /#^(.*) \(BC[^)]*\)(.*)#/),[R1][R2],[Name])

[Mike48]

Try this:

   =if(Regex([Name], /#^(.*) \(BC[^)]*\)(.*)#/),[R1][R2],[Name])

Thank you VERY much!  It works beautifully.

After much study, I think I've got it . . .

• The first ^ anchors the match at the start of the line
• Then (.*) is any number of anything; the () assigns the match a number
• Then the open paren is an escaped literal; [^)]* is any number of anything BUT a closing paren
• Again, (.*) is any number of anything; assigned a number

A concise language, but not an easy one.

[MrC]

Great!

The  [^)] is a negated character class, btw.  The character class [] means match any character within the square brackets, and a ^ as the first character negates this to mean match any single character not listed in the brackets.

[Mike48]

So, did you use regular expressions first in another context (programming), or did you learn them within MC?

[MrC]

I'm dating myself, but Jimmy Carter was still the US president.  'nuff said?

[Mike48]

I'm dating myself, but Jimmy Carter was still the US president.  'nuff said?

Carter?  A recent president.

My first programming course was in Lyndon Johnson's time -- so I may have more white hair than you.