Hi gang. When storing a new thing, I’m trying to do my users a favor and strip out the leading 4 characters ("The ") when its title begins with the word “The” I have a title and a sort-title. I’m attempting to store this truncated title in the sort-title field. In my Update a Thing step (conditional on things that start with "The ") I’m trying to do the following: sort-title = this thing’s sort-title:truncated from end to (this thing’s sort-title :number of characters - 4) So if the title was “The One” using the above equation… sort-title = The One: truncated from end to (3) because total number of chars =7 and 7-4=3 so the value stores is “one” The problem is, I can’t seem to put parens or brackets around my X-Y piece. I’ve tried clicking in every spot, zoomed in, and still no joy. Any suggestions or different approaches? Thanks!

Have you tried :find & replace —> ‘The ’ for nothing. For order of operations and parentheses I use :arbitrary text a lot (you can convert to number back in the main expression if it’s numerical)… obviously native parenthesis will be great once they’re fully fledged though.

Maybe try enabling the experimental parentheses feature? [image] Introducing beta (previously, experimental) features (including parentheses)! New features UPDATE: Aug 15, 2023 - These features are now called beta, rather than experimental, features! See below for an image of the new panel. [Screenshot 2023-09-06 at 10.43.39 AM] Hi everyone, We’re launching a new experimental features UI, which you can find in the Versions tab under Settings! Big shoutout to @aless for building this out smiley [Screen Shot 2022-04-29 at 1.49.13 PM] This will allow you to play with new features that we’re exploring — with this particular launch, you’ll get … Best… Mike

thanks for the heads up! I just enabled but I haven’t figured out how to use it yet. It’s putting parens around the entire thing, but I only want to put it around the X-Y piece. Will dig into it though, thanks again!

Guessing there’s a RegEx solution here too. Trim the first 4 characters isn’t a tall order so hopefully I can get this figured out…

thanks for the suggestions, @exception-rambler . Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make either one work yet. But I’m gonna keep at it. :slight_smile:

thanks again @exception-rambler - I finally got it. I ended up using find & replace as you suggested.

I was just about to respond with a couple of examples that appear to do what you described, @ThatFizzGuy, so what the heck, I will put them out there. Ignore the fact that I used the User data type for the example… oh, I assume you added some sort of only when condition, too? [action1] [action2]

@mikeloc thanks! I would VERY much love to see a video/screencast showing how exactly you got those parens input in your first example. That’s what I was TRYING to input before my original post. :slight_smile: No rush, and no worries if you don’t feel like it. I got it working with the find/replace similar to your second example. [how-parens] thanks again!

Well, in this case, I think that would be a pretty uninteresting video. I just built out the expression, and Bubble put the parentheses in the right places. The only interesting part was where to put the - 4 part of the expression, and it went here. [parens] As soon as I added the - 4, Bubble automatically removed the open parenthesis at the beginning of the expression and added the open parenthesis after :truncated from end to. Seriously, the experimental parentheses feature is downright awesome, if you ask me.

Interesting! Thanks @mikeloc I played with that experimental parens feature earlier today, and when I noticed it putting the open parens at the very start of my expression, I bailed since I couldn’t figure out how to move it to the spot I wanted the open. I guess I should have kept typing and waited for some magic to happen! :slight_smile: Will give it another look… thanks again, sir!

How to add parentheses to an update statement (trim first 4 chars)

Need help Database

mikeloc July 7, 2022, 4:11pm 2

Maybe try enabling the experimental parentheses feature?

Best…
Mike

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How to add parentheses to an update statement (trim first 4 chars)

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