Parse Description field or multi-text field using Regex

[Brett14]

All, I would like to parse text that is within the description field.   I have used regex before but I am a little stuck on how to parse this out.

My string is below and what is in bold should be removed.   I only want the words 'long description' to display in this field.   Is this possible?

NEW_CALL_REF:7fe4cf7bdb53cb404ad038f0ad961926 New Call DESC: Long Description NEW CALL SHORT_DESC: Short Description

I created a business rule to run on Before and I have so far is below.   Any help???

// Add your code here

var descrip = current.getValue('description');

var regex = /New Call DESC:.*/g;

var str = descrip; // Example `NEW_CALL_REF:7fe4cf7bdb53cb404ad038f0ad961926 New Call DESC: Long Description NEW CALL SHORT_DESC: Short Description`;

[Michael Ritchie]

I assume this is coming from an external source?   Do you have any opportunity to edit what comes over?   Parsing is very difficult unless there are standards in place.   For example I see NEW and New and NEW_CALL_REF (underscores) and New Call DESC (spaces).   It would be ideal if you could put a | or ^ or something between each field or even a line break.

If not you could use the javascript substr function to look for "New Call DESC" and grab that text till "NEW CALL SHORT_DESC" assuming these always are in this order.

[Brett14]

Hi Michael,

Yes it will alway come in that way into the description.   One being the obvious that it will be different text, but definitely the same order.

I was following around and was able to get this much taken off by

var indx2 = full_text.indexOf('New Call DESC');

var desc = full_text.substring(indx2,full_text.length);

current.description = desc;

my output is:

New Call DESC: Long Description NEW CALL SHORT_DESC: Short Description

I am getting close, but how do I get the above removed

[Michael Ritchie · Accepted solution]

Here is an example I was doing via background script:

var string = "NEW_CALL_REF:7fe4cf7bdb53cb404ad038f0ad961926 New Call DESC: Long Description NEW CALL SHORT_DESC: Short Description";

var key1 = "New Call DESC:";
var key2 = "NEW CALL SHORT_DESC:";

var key1Index = string.indexOf(key1) + key1.length;
var key2Index = string.indexOf(key2);

var desc = string.substring(key1Index, key2Index).trim();

gs.print("'" + desc + "'");

Output is:

*** Script: 'Long Description'

I had single quotes on it to make sure the trim() function removed leading and trailing spaces.

[Brett14]

thanks michael

It worked.   I have marked your answer as correct for others.