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MarkupExpressions-Talk

This is a talk page for improving MarkupExpressions.

Requests for further markup expressions

• ftime add ordinal suffix for date format - st, nd, rd, th. Added to PITS - please vote up if you requested this. XES
• allow markup expressions to be nested (already possible - see below)
• rtrim - remove trailing spaces (default) or character if optional parameter supplied (useful for page text variables);
  {(rtrim string optionalchar)}
• ltrim - remove leading spaces (default) or character if optional parameter supplied (useful for page text variables);
  {(ltrim string optionalchar)}
• trim - remove leading and trailing spaces (default) or character if optional parameter supplied (useful for page text variables);
  {(trim string optionalchar)}
• nomarkup - remove markup such as separators (! headings, ----), lists (*, #, : :), emphasis ('', ''', [++], [--], etc), paragraphs ([[<<]], -<, ->), and optionally groups ([[x|y]] becomes y)
  {(nomarkup string nolinks)}
• word - return specified word(s) (alfanum+"_"+"-"). If second number is greater than no of word, return all words til the end (KAL)
  {(word string 1)} = return first word
  {(word string 2 4)} = return second, third and fourth word
• token - return parsed string, list of valid separators is specified as 1. argument, no of token as 2. argument (KAL)
  {(token string 'list-of-sep-chars' 3)}
• return string before a target string (KAL)
  • e.g.: {(stringbefore "sample string to be parsed" "ng")} will return "sample stri"
  • PHP-code to add to markupexpressions.php:

# return substring of string before targetstring:
##  expressions like {(stringbefore string targetstring)}
$MarkupExpr['stringbefore'] = 'stringbefore($args[0],$args[1])';

function stringbefore($text,$target)
{
  list($text2,$null) = explode($target,$text);
  return $text2;
}

how do I achieve the following

• obtain the last n characters of a string

• truncate the last n characters of a string

Working examples

* "{$Name}"
# {(substr "{$Name}" 6 -5)}
# {(substr "{$Name}" -5)}
# {(substr "{$Name}" 0)}

# {(substr "{$Name}" 0 -5)}
# {(substr "{$Name}" -5 4)}
# {(substr "{$Name}" -5 -6)}

Is it possible to nest markup expressions?

{(substr "{$FullName}" 0 -5)}

{(asspaced '{$FullName}')}

{(asspaced '{(substr "{$FullName}" 0 -5)}')}

{(asspaced (substr "{$FullName}" 0 -5))}

Points to note:

• Nested MXes work with just parens on the inner MX, not curly+paren
• If you put it in quotes then it will be processed as a literal rather than as an expression, as expected

Moved from main page (doesn't work)

• is it possible to display the time in another time zone, eg

NowTime: {(ftime fmt="%F %H:%M")}
 1 {(ftime when='Europe/London')}
 2 {(ftime when='Europe/London 0 days')}
 3 {(ftime when="Europe/London 2004-10-31 08:00")}
 4 {(ftime when='Pacific/Auckland {$:NowTime}')} 
->@@#4 doesn't work because of the order of rules with a markup expression both setting NowTime (above) and also using it (in #4)@@

 5 {(ftime when='Europe/London')}
 6 {(ftime when='Europe/London +2 days')}
 7 {(ftime when="Europe/London 20041031T0820")}
 8 {(ftime "%F %H:%M Pacific/Auckland" 'now')}
 9 {(ftime "%F %H:%M" 'Pacific/Auckland now')}
 10 {(ftime "%F %H:%M" 'now NZST')}
 11 {(ftime "%F %H:%M NZST" 'now')}

 1 January 17, 2019, at 09:16 PM
 2 January 17, 2019, at 09:16 PM
 3 October 31, 2004, at 12:00 AM
 4 (ftime when='Pacific/Auckland {2019-01-17 21:16')} 

 5 January 17, 2019, at 09:16 PM
 6 January 19, 2019, at 09:16 PM
 7 October 31, 2004, at 08:20 AM
 8 2019-01-17 21:16 Pacific/Auckland
 9 2019-01-17 08:16
 10 2019-01-17 09:16
 11 2019-01-17 21:16 NZST

How is it possible to use page variables as follows

(:Month:{(substr 2013May 4)}:) 
(:MonthNum:{(ftime fmt="%m" when="{$:Month}")}:)
{$:Month} ''as a number is'' {$:MonthNum}

Just note that when you have in a page a {$:PageTextVariable} the wikitext it contains is pasted in its place in the page without any change (except for relative links), and without evaluation. The evaluation will be done at a later point. That means, your {$:MonthNum} variable will actually contain {(ftime fmt="%m" when="{(substr 2013May 4)}")} after {$:Month} has been changed to its text content. When at a later point the markup expressions are evaluated, this is an incorrect syntax - in order to embed markup expressions, only the outer one needs curly brackets. So PmWiki does exactly what it is designed to do, but probably not what you expect. --Petko May 03, 2013, at 03:32 PM

Fix by:

• removing the curly braces from the definition of PTV Month
• adding curly braces around the call to PTV Month in the final line
• removing quotes around the when parameter in the PTV MonthNum definition

(:Month2:(substr 2013May 4):) 
(:MonthNum2:{(ftime fmt="%m" when={$:Month2})}:)
{{$:Month2}} ''as a number is'' {$:MonthNum2}

ChuckG December 08, 2017, at 06:05 PM

This is working fine in MarkupExpressions-Sandbox but not here. Is there anything wrong with this? -- Luigi 2 Sept 2014

MyDate:2007-04-12

              {(ftime '%A %B %e, %Y' {$:MyDate})}
              {(ftime '%A %B %e, %Y' '{$:MyDate} -2days')}

              Thursday April 12, 2007
              Tuesday April 10, 2007

Update! Thanks to Petko for enhancing the system: date subtraction now works!
Please see the thread about Adding/subtracting days to ftime Page Text Variable -- Luigi 5 Sept 2014

* {(ftime fmt="%Y-%m-%d" when="first tue of jan 2015")}
* {(ftime fmt="%Y-%m-%d" when="first tue of next jan")}
* {(ftime fmt="%Y-%m-%d" when="first tue of jan")}

On the 31st of August (possibly on every 31st or perhaps on every last day of a month, not sure) there is an odd result, something like:

• Jul
• Jul
• Aug 2016
• Oct
• Oct
• Dec

* {(ftime fmt="%b" "-2 month")}
* {(ftime fmt="%b" "-1 month")}
* {(ftime fmt="%b %Y")}
* {(ftime fmt="%b" "+1 month")}
* {(ftime fmt="%b" "+2 month")}
* {(ftime fmt="%b" "+3 month")}

A possible fix is here http://www.pmichaud.com/pipermail/pmwiki-users/2016-August/063609.html thanks to Petko.

-- Luigi 31 August 2016