Stripping out the initial common numbers

If you can find an entire series of numbers with GREP in a script, you should be able to split them into an array, loop through them to compare each number with the preceding number, then add them to a new array. So if the first 3 of the current number match the first 3 of the preceding number, only add the last 3 numbers to the new array. Otherwise, add the number as is (hopefully that makes sense).

I’m extra bored today, so I threw together a function to handle the number checking (I’m sure there’s a cooler way to do this, but this seems to work). If the function works as you expect, you could expand the script to loop through multiple number series in the document, feed them to this function, and use the returned array to update the document.


var sourceNumbers = [405354, 405358, 405359, 405369, 305046, 305047, 405360, 405381, 405382, 405378];

return updatedNumbers;
}


Hi Masood,

I know you love videos! ;-)

(^/)

Ah, my mistake. It’s just a few more lines to run this based on a selection, so I’ve updated the script below. Just select a series of numbers and run the script and it should clean up the series. It should also work on numbers greater than 6 digits as long as it’s always the first 3 numbers that are common.


(function(){
var selection = app.selection[0];

function removeCommonPrefix(numbers) {
var updatedNumbers =[];
var i = numbers.length -1;
while (i >= 1) {
var currentNumber = numbers[i];
var currentNumberPrefix = numbers[i].toString().slice(0, 3);
var preceedingNumberPrefix = numbers[i -1].toString().slice(0, 3);
var numberSuffix = numbers[i].toString().slice(3);
if (currentNumberPrefix == preceedingNumberPrefix) {
var number = numberSuffix;
} else {
var number = currentNumber;
}
updatedNumbers.unshift(number);
i--;
}
//the first number will always need the initial 3, so at the end of the loop add it to the start
updatedNumbers.unshift(numbers[0]);
return updatedNumbers;
}
})();


Come on Mike, one last little effort to deal with the whole document, as I did! ;-)

(^/)

Ok, ok, I’ll quit being lazy. :)

This has been updated to attempt to find all number series using GREP and update.


(function(){
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "(\\d+, )((\\d)[, ]*)+";
var found = app.activeDocument.findGrep();

function removeCommonPrefix(numbers) {
var updatedNumbers =[];
var i = numbers.length -1;
while (i >= 1) {
var currentNumber = numbers[i];
var currentNumberPrefix = numbers[i].toString().slice(0, 3);
var preceedingNumberPrefix = numbers[i -1].toString().slice(0, 3);
var numberSuffix = numbers[i].toString().slice(3);
if (currentNumberPrefix == preceedingNumberPrefix) {
var number = numberSuffix;
} else {
var number = currentNumber;
}
updatedNumbers.unshift(number);
i--;
}
//the first number will always need the initial 3, so at the end of the loop add it to the start
updatedNumbers.unshift(numbers[0]);
return updatedNumbers;
}
})();