match pattern with bracket [] (again, but different)

[Christ0phe]

Hello,

I have got the following issue. I have a file A.txt that contains few Mb of texts of this format (5 to 10.000 lines):

abcd parameter [1]

efgh parameter [19]

ijklmop variable [5]

...

A portion of my program reads chains of caracters from another file. These terms are for instance parameter [19]. I would like to know if this term belongs to the large A.txt file. I am aware that I need to add the backslash \ in front of the bracket if I want to use the match pattern function unfortunately in my case the argument (pattern to match) varies accroding to what the program will read (in a loop). Am I forced to replace the bracket by a \bracket with the find and replace function before using the match pattern function? This is very time consuming.

Thanks for any sugegstion,

Christophe

[smercurio_fc]

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Christ0phe wrote:

 Am I forced to replace the bracket by a \bracket with the find and replace function before using the match pattern function?

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Yes. This is by design.

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This is very time consuming.

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What is time consuming? The execution of the Search and Replace String function, or, are you doing something else? Perhaps if you post your code it might make it a bit more clear. 

[Christ0phe]

The 'search and replace' takes time if I have to apply it in sequence to the elements that are read (by line) simply because there are 10.000 lines. So whether I feed the search and replace with the whole file or individually times 10.000 it is a huge time. Maybe I should use something else than match pattern but I do not know which one.

[smercurio_fc]

I guess I'm not understanding what you're doing. You said you want to look for "parameter[19]" (as an example) in your A.txt file. Why are you replacing the text that you read from A.txt? You shouldn't replace anything in there. You replace the "[" in the string that you're looking up ("parameter[19]").

If I did not understand correctly then please post your code, as well as an example text file (compressed, please). 

[Christ0phe]

Hello again, thank you for your patience and sorry not to have been clearer. I think you will find a better explanation in the attached vi that is only an extract from the main vi that I wrote. It works, sure, but its heavy and time consuming. I was wondering it there was a nicer way to code the same function.

Thanks again,
Christophe

[johnsold]

Christophe,

The example you posted has a different format from the data in your original post. Is the numeric part inside the square brackets [ ] or before the brackets?  In your example VI you could simply search for "Parameter xx" and then adjust the offset past the match to account for the "[s]" part.

Your VI has two lines with "Parameter 7".  Does your real file have multiple lines with the same parameter value?  Do you need to find all the multiples?

I would consider parsing the numeric part from the strings in file B and concatenating those with preformatted search strings (with the \[ combinations).  I think this might be a bit faster than doing multiple search and replace operations.

Lynn

[Christ0phe]

The strings given in the example are just ... example. There can be anything inside the [ ] and also anything before or after it. There could be many other possibilities than "Parameter". Actually, "Parameter" is the name of a physical parameter: temperature, pressure, flow,... and the units between [ ]. The same parameter name might appear more than once and the different occurences must be traced. I cannot parsing the way you propose as there is not necessary a numeric part.

If there is no possibilities, I would maybe match \[ and forget the unit part, taken into acount only the parameter name.

Thanks,
Christophe