String formulas

In Ruby, strings refer to sequences of text and characters.

AppConnect supports a variety of string formulas. Formulas in AppConnect are whitelisted Ruby methods, and therefore not all Ruby methods are supported. You can always reach out to us to add additional formulas to the whitelist. Syntax and functionality for these formulas are generally unchanged. Take note that most formulas will return an error and stop the job if it tries to operate on nulls (expressed as nil in Ruby), except for present?, presence and blank?.

In the examples below, we will look at some of the methods that can be used to manipulate a string of text, which in this case the input string is 'Jean Marie'.

Conditionals

This section will cover formulas which allow you to apply conditions (if-else) to your strings.

blank?

This formula checks the input string and returns true if it is an empty string or if it is null.

Syntax

Input.blank?

• Input - An input datapill. It can be a string, number, date, or datetime datatype.

Sample usage

How it works

If the input is null or an empty string, the formula will return false. For any other data, it returns true.

is_not_true?

Converts a value to boolean and returns true if the value is not truthy.

Syntax

Input.is_not_true?

• Input - An input number or a string.

Sample usage

How it works

Converts the input into a boolean and returns true if the value is not truthy.

truthy vs falsey

false, nil, 0 and empty strings ("") are falsey, all other numbers and string values are truthy.

is_true?

Converts a value to boolean and returns true if the value is truthy.

Syntax

Input.is_true?

• Input - An input number or a string.

Sample usage

How it works

Converts the input into a boolean and returns true if the value is truthy.

truthy vs falsey

false, nil, 0 and empty strings ("") are falsey, all other numbers and string values are truthy.

present?

This formula will check the input and if there is a value present, it will return true. If the input is nil, an empty string or an empty list, the function will return false.

Syntax

Input.present?

• Input - An input datapill. It can be a string, number, date, or list datatype.

Sample usage

How it works

If the input is null, an empty string or an empty list, the formula will return false. For any other data, it returns true.

Evaluating a list with nil values

• Only an empty list will return false.

[].present? returns false.

• A list with nil and empty string will return true.

[nil,""].present? returns true.

presence

Returns the data if it exists, returns nil if it does not.

Syntax

Input.presence

• Input - An input datapill. It can be a string, number, date, or datetime datatype.

Sample usage

How it works

If the input is null or an empty string, the formula will return nil. For any other data, it returns the orignal input data.

include?

Checks if the string contains a specific substring. Returns true if it does.

Syntax

Input.include?(substring)

• Input - A string input.

• substring - The substring to check for.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check is the string contains a specific substring. Returns true if it does, otherwise, returns false. This substring is case sensitive.

This function acts in an opposite manner from exclude?. It will return true only if the input string contains the stated keyword.

exclude?

Checks if the string contains a specific substring. Returns false if it does.

Syntax

Input.exclude?(substring)

• Input - A string input.

• substring - The substring to check for.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check is the string contains a specific substring. Returns false if it does, otherwise, returns true. This substring is case sensitive.

This function acts in an opposite manner from include?. It will return true only if the input string does NOT contain the stated keyword.

match?

Checks if the string contains a specific pattern. Returns true if it does.

Syntax

Input.match?(pattern)

• Input - A string input.

• pattern - The pattern to check for.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check is the string contains a specific pattern. Returns true if it does, otherwise, returns false.

ends_with?

Checks if the string ends with a specific substring. Returns true if it does.

Syntax

Input.ends_with?(substring)

• Input - A string input.

• substring - The substring to check for.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check is the string ends with a specific substring. Returns true if it does, otherwise, returns false.

starts_with?

Checks if the string starts with a specific substring. Returns true if it does.

Syntax

Input.starts_with?(substring)

• Input - A string input.

• substring - The substring to check for.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check is the string starts with a specific substring. Returns true if it does, otherwise, returns false.

Text manipulation

parameterize

Replaces special characters in a string. Used when app does not accept non-standard characters.

Syntax

Input.parameterize

• Input - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula searches for special characters in the string and replaces them with standard characters. Used when app does not accept non-standard characters.

lstrip

This formula removes the white space at the beginning of the input string.

Syntax

String.lstrip

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula removes white spaces from the beginning of a string. If the string doesn't have any white spaces before, the input string will be returned as is.

Quicktip: Selectively remove white spaces

• To only remove white spaces from the right side, use rstrip.

• To remove white spaces from the middle of the string, use gsub.
  "a b c d e".gsub(" " , "") returns "abcde".

rstrip

This formula removes the white space at the end of the input string.

Syntax

String.rstrip

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula removes white spaces from the end of a string. If the string doesn't have any white spaces at the end, the input string will be returned as is.

Quicktip: Selectively remove white spaces

• To only remove white spaces from the left side, use lstrip.

• To remove white spaces from the middle of the string, use gsub.
  "a b c d e".gsub(" " , "") returns "abcde".

strip

This formula removes the white space at the beginning and the end of the input string.

Syntax

String.strip

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula removes white spaces from both sides of a string. If the string doesn't have any white spaces before or after, the input string will be returned as is.

Quicktip: Selectively remove white spaces

• To only remove white spaces from one side, use lstrip or rstrip.

• To remove white spaces from the middle of the string, use gsub.
  "a b c d e".gsub(" " , "") returns "abcde".

strip_tags

This formula removes html tags embedded in a string.

Syntax

String.strip_tags

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula check for html tags within the input string. It removes any html tags found and returns the string.

ljust

Aligns the string to left and pads with whitespace or pattern until string is specified length.

Syntax

String.ljust(length,character)

• String - An input string.

• length - The length of the output string.

• character - (optional) The character to pad the string. If unspecified, the default pad character will be a blank space.

Sample usage

rjust

Aligns the string to left and pads with whitespace or pattern until string is specified length.

Syntax

String.rjust(length,character)

• String - An input string.

• length - The length of the output string.

• character - (optional) The character to pad the string. If unspecified, the default pad character will be a blank space.

Sample usage

reverse

Inverts a string, reordering the characters in a backward manner. Case is preserved.

Syntax

String.reverse

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

gsub

Replace parts of a text string. Returns a new string with the replaced characters.

Syntax

String.gsub(find,replace)

• String - An input string. You can use a datapill or a static string value.

• find - The string to look for. You can use a /pattern/ syntax.

• replace - The replacement string. You can define the replacement using a string or hash.

Sample usage

Advance sample usage

How it works

This formula works like find and replace. It takes two input parameters:

1. The first input is the string that you want to replace. This is case-sensitive - so make sure to type correctly in either uppercase or lowercase to find all occurrences that are an exact match.

2. The second input is the new string that will be used for replacing all occurrences of first input.

Use regex pattern matching.

sub

Replaces the first occurrence of the first input value, with the second input value, within the string. This formula is case-sensitive - make sure to type in uppercase or lowercase before comparison if you are concerned about case sensitivity.

Syntax

String.sub(find,replace)

• String - An input string. You can use a datapill or a static string value.

• find - The string to look for. You can use a /pattern/ syntax.

• replace - The replacement string. You can define the replacement using a string or hash.

Sample usage

length

Returns the number of characters within an input string, including the white-spaces.\

Syntax

String.length

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

slice

Returns a partial segment of a string.

Syntax

String.slice(start,end)

• String - An input string.

• start - The index of the string to start returning.

• end - (optional) The number of characters to return. If unspecified, the formula will return only one character.

Sample usage

How it works

The formula returns a partial segment of a string. It takes in 2 parameters - the first parameter is the index that decides which part of the string to start returning from (first letter being 0 and subsequently progressing incrementally, negative numbers will be taken from the last character), the second parameter decides how many characters to return. If only the first parameter is passed in, only 1 character will be returned.

scan

Scan the string for the pattern to retrieve and return an array

Syntax

String.scan(pattern)

• String - An input string.

• pattern - The pattern to search for.

Sample usage

encode

Returns the string in a given encoding.

Syntax

String.encode(encoding)

• String - An input string.

• encoding - Name of the encoding (e.g. Windows-1252).

Sample usage

transliterate

Replaces non-ASCII characters with an ASCII approximation, or if none exists, a replacement character which defaults to '?'.

Syntax

String.transliterate

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

• parameterize

  : Replaces special characters in a string.

Text case manipulation

This section covers formulas which allow you to change the case of certain parts of a word.

capitalize

Converts the input string into sentence case, i.e. the first character of each sentence is capitalized.

Syntax

String.capitalize

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

titleize

Converts the input string into title case, i.e. the first character of each word is capitalized.

Syntax

String.titleize

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

upcase

Convert text to uppercase.

Syntax

String.upcase

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula searches for any lowercase character and replace it with the uppercase characters.

Quicktip: Search strings better with upcase

Search formulas like (gsub or sub) uses case sensitive characters. Use the upcase formula ensure that all characters are in the same case.

downcase

Convert text to lowercase.

Syntax

String.downcase

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula searches for any uppercase character and replace it with the lowercase characters.

Quicktip: Search strings better with downcase

Search formulas like (gsub or sub) uses case sensitive characters. Use the downcase formula ensure that all characters are in the same case.

quote

Quotes a string, escaping any ' (single quote) characters

Syntax

String.quote

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

Converting to arrays and back

This section shows how you can manipulate strings into arrays.

split

This formula divides a string around a specified character and returns an array of strings.

Syntax

String.split(char)

• String - An input string value. You can use a datapill or a static value.

• char - (optional) The character at which to split the text. This is case sensitive. If no character is defined, then by default, strings are split by white spaces.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula looks for the specified character in the input string. Every time it is found, the input will be split into a new string.

Split character(s)

You can use a string of characters together as the split argument (e.g. "and").

"You and Me".split("and") returns ["You","Me"].

bytes

Returns an array of bytes for a given string.

Syntax

String.bytes

• String - An input string.

Sample usage

Conversion formulas

To convert a value of other data types, e.g. number, date, into a string, use the to_s formula.

Conversion of other data types to strings

to_s

Converts data to a string (text) datatype.

Syntax

Input.to_s

• Input - Any input data. You can use number, array, object, or datetime datatypes.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula returns a string representation of the input data.

Quicktip: Output is a string datatype.

A string representation of a list cannot be used in a repeat step.

ordinalize

Turns a number into an ordinal string used to denote the position in an ordered sequence such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

Syntax

Input.ordinalize

• Input - Any input number.

Sample usage

Conversion of strings to other data types

to_f

Converts data to a float (number) datatype.

Syntax

Input.to_f

• Input - An number input data. You can use a string datatype or a integer datatype.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula checks whether the input contains any numbers, if no numbers are found, it returns 0. If the number does not have a decimal point, .0 will be added the number.

to_i

Converts data to an integer (whole number) datatype.

Syntax

Input.to_i

• Input - An number input data. You can use a string datatype or a float datatype.

Sample usage

How it works

This formula checks whether the input contains any numbers, if no numbers are found, it returns 0. If the number has a decimal point, everything after the decimal will be omitted.

Check for integers

You can use this formula to check if a string contains an integer. If the input does not contain any numbers, the formula will return 0.

to_country_alpha2

Convert alpha-3 country code or country name to alpha2 country code (first 2 initials).

Syntax

Input.to_country_alpha2

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_country_alpha3

Convert alpha-2 country code or country name to alpha3 country code (first 3 initials).

Syntax

Input.to_country_alpha3

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_country_name

Convert alpha-2/3 country code or country name to ISO3166 country name.

Syntax

Input.to_country_name

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_currency

Formats integers/numbers to a currency-style.

Syntax

Input.to_currency

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

Advance sample usage

Learn more about advance usage for the to_currency formula. A comma-separated combination of these may be used to achieve the desired currency format. For example:

to_currency_code

Convert alpha-2/3 country code or country name to ISO4217 currency code

Syntax

Input.to_currency_code

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_currency_name

Convert alpha-3 currency code or alpha-2/3 country code or country name to ISO4217 currency name.

Syntax

Input.to_currency_name

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_currency_symbol

Convert alpha-3 currency code or alpha-2/3 country code or country name to ISO4217 currency symbol.

Syntax

Input.to_currency_symbol

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_phone

Converts string or number to a formatted phone number (user-defined).

Syntax

Input.to_phone

• Input - Any input string or number.

Sample usage

to_state_code

Convert state name to code.

Syntax

Input.to_state_code

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

to_state_name

Convert state code to name.

Syntax

Input.to_state_name

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage

bytesize

Returns the length of a given string in bytes.

Syntax

Input.bytesize

• Input - Any input string.

Sample usage