Whats wrong with this regular expression

[BurningOrca]

var test = Window_Base.prototype.convertEscapeCharacters
Window_Base.prototype.convertEscapeCharacters = function(text)
{
      text = test.call(this, text);     
      text = text.replace(/\x1bPPIC\<(\d+)\s*,\s*(.+)\>(\{(Scale:\[([-]?\d+){1},([-]?\d+){1}\])?([,]?\s*Opacity:(\d+){1}?)\})?/gi, function()
      {
              var scale = {x:150,y:150};
              var opacity = 255;
              if( arguments[3] )
              {
                  if( arguments[4] )
                  {
                      scale.x = Number(arguments[5]);
                      scale.y = Number(arguments[6]);
                  }
                  if( arguments[7] )
                  {
                      opacity = Number(arguments[8]);
                  }
              }
        // Do something here
        return '';
     }.bind(this));

}

The second show text event is the one which is not working. arguments[3] is not filled for this one and I don't know why?

1st returns Oh this is a tree!!!
2nd returns {Scale:[125,-125]}Oh this is a tree!!!
3rd returns Oh this is a tree!!!
4th returns Oh this is a tree!!!

How can I make the second one returns also only Oh this is a tree!!!

 

[caethyril]

Oh wow that's a convoluted escape sequence...

Well, I tested your RegExp against the test string in the console, and sure enough it only matches "\x1bppic<1,Child>"~

/\x1bPPIC\<(\d+)\s*,\s*(.+)\>(\{(Scale:\[([-]?\d+){1},([-]?\d+){1}\])?([,]?\s*Opacity:(\d+){1}?)\})?/gi.exec('\x1bppic<1,Child>{Scale:[125,-125]}Oh this is a tree!');

I couldn't spot any obvious mistakes, so rather than try to decipher what's gone wrong, I rewrote it from scratch. This seems to produce the expected matches for me from the test string; assuming it works for you, maybe you can use it to help figure out what was wrong with your expression?

• Without spacing:
  

  /\x1bPPIC\<(\d+),(.+?)\>(\{(Scale:\[([-]?\d+),([-]?\d+)\])?[,]?(Opacity:(\d+))?\})?/gi

• With spacing:
  

  /\x1bPPIC\<(\d+)\s*,\s*(.+?)\>(\{(Scale:\[([-]?\d+)\s*,\s*([-]?\d+)\])?[,]?(\s*Opacity:\s*(\d+))?\})?/gi

 

[BurningOrca]

Thank you very much, it works perfect.
So I know "." means any character, "+" means 0 or more and "?" means 0 or 1, but could you tell me what does the combination ".+?" do?

 

[caethyril]

Great!

By default, regular expressions use a "greedy" algorithm, i.e. they make the longest possible match fitting the expression. Adding a ? immediately after a quantifier (e.g. * or +) forces that match to be "non-greedy", i.e. the shortest possible match fitting the expression. Details can be found here~ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Guide/Regular_Expressions/Quantifiers

I've used the non-greedy match here because you could have stuff like this in your message:

\ppic<1,NPC>Hey, is that...\>\P[0]\<!?

In this case a greedy match might see the separate \> escape character as part of your text match, yielding:

NPC>Hey, is that...\

...instead of the expected match: NPC. There are other ways around this issue, though, e.g. use an excluded character group instead of a dot: [^>]+. Hope that makes sense!

 

[BurningOrca]

Thank you very much.
This information was very useful and I've learned a lot.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

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