Remove first char from string - Regex

Question

I have started using Workflow on iOS to help speed up tasks at work. One of those is entering delivery records into the computer (via the iPad barcode scan function) instead of manually writting down the ref code and then typing it in.

Workflow has a "Replace Text" function that can be used with regexs to strip out characters etc.

I have managed to find a regex to get rid of the last digit in a scan (a checksum digit, always a capital letter).

The regex is simple.

.{0}-$.

This goes in the "Find Text" field. The "Replace With" is left empty. It works wonderfully.

How can adapt this to work with other scan types with other scan types where I want to specically get rid of the FIRST character only? I've searched the forums but can only find long and difficult to interpret regexes that I am sure won't do what I am trying to achive, something simple by comparison.

An example is of what I mean is to convert "Y300006944" to "300006944"

You'd better explain what `.{0}-$.` means, since it is not a *valid regex*. A link to the relevant documentation would also help. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Nov 17 '17 at 08:38

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 17 '17 at 08:17

4

You can use the following regex:

^.(.*)$

with a backreference $1 that you can use as replacement.

Good luck.

answered Nov 17 '17 at 08:17

Allan

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I tried both ^.(.*)$ and ^.(.*)$1 the 'Y" still remains. – William Lombard Nov 17 '17 at 08:25
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$1 or \1 should be used as replacement not inside the regex – Allan Nov 17 '17 at 08:34
Thanks for helping me out. The "Y" character still remains though. Here is a hosted scrren shot. https://ibb.co/dWByf6 – William Lombard Nov 17 '17 at 08:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 17 '17 at 09:11

1

Thanks to those who contributed somehting useful :)

I got the it resolved by using the "Split Text" function in Workflow for iOS.

I gave it the command to split based on a customer char, "Y" in this case. It's enough in this simple case.

answered Nov 17 '17 at 09:11

William Lombard

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Remove first char from string - Regex

2 Answers2