How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

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Posted on by Community Member Microsoft Employee

I have a custom workflow which is now working below that creates multiple records from a multi-line text field (line by line).

Problem: People will type in telephone numbers into this field in a list however some people put in spaces into phone numbers. I want to be able to remove any spaces in these phone numbers.

Another problem is that people put blank lines in the text field and this blank line will create a new record in the said custom workflow below.

I need to know how to manipulate the code below so that the mutliline text field data is cleansed before it creates the records.

So for example:

08888 888888
09888 888888
<Blank Line>
09988 888 888

Becomes

08888888888
09888888888
09988888888<<<<<<Array/Multiline is trimmed at this point.

Code I have used so far for the custom workflow is:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using System.Activities;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Workflow;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace CreateLineRecords

{

public class CreateRecords : CodeActivity

{

[Input("Phone Numbers")]

[RequiredArgument]

public InArgument<string> LinesString { get; set; }

[Input("Billing Account")]

[RequiredArgument]

[ReferenceTarget("account")]

public InArgument<EntityReference> Accountfromorder { get; set; }

[Input("Order")]

[RequiredArgument]

[ReferenceTarget("salesorder")]

public InArgument<EntityReference> Orderfromorder { get; set; }

protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context)

{

IWorkflowContext workflowcontext = context.GetExtension<IWorkflowContext>();

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = context.GetExtension<IOrganizationServiceFactory>();

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(workflowcontext.InitiatingUserId);

var lines = LinesString.Get<string>(context).Split('\n').ToList<string>(); ;

foreach (var line in lines)

{

var lineEntity = new Entity("rp_line");

var accountforline = Accountfromorder.Get<EntityReference>(context);

var orderforline = Orderfromorder.Get<EntityReference>(context);

lineEntity["rp_cli"] = line;

lineEntity["new_billingaccount"] = accountforline;

lineEntity["new_order"] = orderforline;

service.Create(lineEntity);

}

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All responses (11)

Answers (1)

Colin365Bell 40 on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Hi Ryan,

Could you help me with this at all?

I'm trying to replace spaces with a dash i.e. "Test Account" as "Test-Account"

It allows me to replace characters but not Spaces?

Any Ideas where Im going wrong? here is the screen shot

UPDATE: I see my mistake please disregard, thank you

TIA

Colin
bpr_admin on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Hi Ryan, I am unable to remove blank lines with the regex replace utility. Do you have any insight to the issue? I don't need to remove spaces, just blank lines and blank lines that might have spaces. Here's the RegEx that I am using. No matter what I still have the first blank line.

(^(\r\n|\n|\r)$)|(^(\r\n|\n|\r))|^[ \t\r\n]*$|^\s*$/gm
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Hi John,

if you solved the problem thanks to an answer, please mark the response as verified to encourage the community to provide more and more a better support. Thank you. Francesco

If you found the answer helpful, please mark as Verified

Thank You & Best Regards

Francesco Picchi

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Consultant, Bologna, ITALY

Independent Contractor

http://www.francescopicchi.com
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Hi John,

have you solved the problem?

Please let us know.

If you found the answer helpful, please mark as Verified

Thank You & Best Regards

Francesco Picchi

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Consultant, Bologna, ITALY

Independent Contractor

http://www.francescopicchi.com
Suggested answer

Ryan Maclean 3,070 on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Hi John,

You could use the RegEx Replace step:

I've done a brief experiment with this and managed to remove all of the excess spaces and/or all newlines in a given expression
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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Put before lineEntity["rp_cli"] = line; the following code:

line = Regex.Replace(line, @"\s+", "");

If you need to remove also tab and newline just add "\n\r\t";

Hope it helps!

If you found the answer helpful, please mark as Verified

Thank You & Best Regards

Francesco Picchi

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Consultant, Bologna, ITALY

Independent Contractor

http://www.francescopicchi.com
Verified answer

Ivan Ficko 1,380 on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

Replace line

lineEntity["rp_cli"] = line;

with

lineEntity["rp_cli"] = line.Replace(" ", string.Empty);
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

I did look at this Ryan but you can't replace spaces with it :( - Well I couldn't see a way you could. It seams to allows you to add spaces though.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

That worked a treat for getting rid of blank lines but it doesn't work to remove spaces in the phone numbers.

Also if you have a space on a blank line it doesn't get rid of the line and it still creates a blank record
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Ivan Ficko 1,380 on at

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RE: How to I remove spaces and blank lines from a multiline text field?

You can just add .Where(x => x != "") to the split line.

var lines = LinesString.Get<string>(context).Split('\n').ToList<string>().Where(x => x != "");