Regex replace

Function: Regex replace

This action helps you find specific patterns within a piece of text and replace them with new text. It's a powerful tool for cleaning, reformatting, or extracting information from any text you're working with. You define the pattern using a special code (called a "regular expression" or "regex"), and then specify what you want to replace those patterns with.

Input

• Text (STRING): The original text where you want to perform the replacement. This is the text that will be searched for the specified patterns.
• Regex (STRING): The pattern you want to find within the Text. This pattern uses a special syntax to describe what to look for (e.g., all numbers, all email addresses, specific words or phrases).
• Replacement (STRING): The new text that will be inserted wherever the Regex pattern is found in the Text.

Output

• Result (STRING): This is the name of the variable where the final text, after all replacements have been made, will be stored. By default, this variable is named "RESULT".

Execution Flow

Real-Life Examples

Example 1: Standardizing Phone Numbers

Imagine you have a list of phone numbers in various formats (e.g., \(123\) 456-7890, 123-456-7890, 123.456.7890) and you want to standardize them to 1234567890.

• Inputs:
  • Text: My contact is \(123\) 456-7890 or 123-456-7890.
  • Regex: [^0-9] (This pattern means "any character that is NOT a digit from 0-9")
  • Replacement: `` (An empty string, effectively removing the matched characters)
• Result: The variable RESULT will contain My contact is 1234567890 or 1234567890.

Example 2: Anonymizing Sensitive Information

You have customer feedback and want to replace all email addresses with [EMAIL_REDACTED] before sharing it to protect privacy.

• Inputs:
  • Text: Please contact me at [email protected] for more details. My other email is [email protected].
  • Regex: \b[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z|a-z]\{2,\}\b (This pattern matches common email address formats)
  • Replacement: [EMAIL_REDACTED]
• Result: The variable RESULT will contain Please contact me at [EMAIL_REDACTED] for more details. My other email is [EMAIL_REDACTED].

Example 3: Cleaning Up Product Codes

Your product codes sometimes include extra information like a version number (e.g., -v1.0 or _v2) at the end, and you want to remove these to get the base product code.

• Inputs:
  • Text: Product-ABC-123-v1.0, Product-XYZ_456_v2, Product-DEF-789
  • Regex: [-_]v\d+\.?\d* (This pattern matches -v or _v followed by one or more digits, optionally a dot and more digits)
  • Replacement: `` (An empty string)
• Result: The variable RESULT will contain Product-ABC-123, Product-XYZ_456, Product-DEF-789