[solved] SRER challenge

[Nine]

I have this string : '{"Test":"test:test":"\"test:test\"":"Test:Test:Test":"Test"}'

And I would like to remove all colon inside quotation marks and keep the others outside.

My resulting string should be : '{"Test":"testtest":"\"testtest\"":"TestTestTest":"Test"}'

Notice that some quotation marks maybe escapeded.

I have this that works well, but I am curious if there is a way to perform the same in a single SRER.  I tried multiple things but nothing has been successful...

Local $sLine = '{"Test":"test:test":"\"test:test\"":"Test:Test:Test":"Test"}'
ConsoleWrite($sLine & @CRLF) ; before
ConsoleWrite(RemoveColon($sLine) & @CRLF) ;after

Func RemoveColon($sText)
  Local $iPos = 1, $sFinal, $aTemp
  While True
    $aTemp = StringRegExp($sText, '(.*?")', 1, $iPos) ; get starting quote
    If @error Then ExitLoop
    $sFinal &= $aTemp[0]
    $iPos += StringLen($aTemp[0])
    Do
      $aTemp = StringRegExp($sText, '(.*?")', 1, $iPos)
      $iPos += StringLen($aTemp[0])
      $sFinal &= StringReplace($aTemp[0], ":", "")
    Until StringRight($aTemp[0], 2) <> '\"'           ; till closing quote
  WEnd
  Return $sFinal & StringRegExp($sText, "(.*)", 1, $iPos)[0]
EndFunc

of course 'test' can be anything 

Edited April 20, 2024 by Nine

[Andreik]

Negative lookahead:

Local $sLine = '{"Test":"test:test":"\"test:test\"":"Test:Test:Test":"Test"}'

ConsoleWrite(StringRegExpReplace($sLine, ':(?!")', '') & @CRLF)

or a more precise pattern that is aware of possible spaces:

Local $sLine = '{"Test"   :   "test   :   test"   :   "\"test   :   test\""   :   "Test   :   Test   :   Test"   :   "Test"}'

ConsoleWrite(StringRegExpReplace($sLine, '((?<![" ])(?: *):(?: *)(?![" ]))', '') & @CRLF)

 

Edited April 19, 2024 by Andreik

[jchd]

If you're certain that the format of your data is always a series of tokens enclosed in double quotes separated by columns, you can make it simple:

Local $s = '{"Test":"test:test":"\"test:test\"":"Test:Test:Test":"Test"}'
Local $t = StringRegExpReplace($s, '(?<!"):(?!")', '')

 

[Nine]

Thank you both for putting me in the right direction.  I was looking at way too complex solutions while the obvious was escaping me.

Like you showed me, all I want is to remove ":" between "\w" characters.

This pattern works perfect for my need : '(?<=\w):(?=\w)'