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Automation Action: Text Operation

Perform various operations on text values.

Built-In Action

Perform various operations on text.

The From value can be any text or %variable% replacement or combination.

Select the Text Operation Type:

OperationType Details
Trim: All Whitespace All Whitespace (replaces all tab, CR, and LF characters, with space characters, and removes extra space's so there are no occurrences of more than one space in a row).
Trim: Blanks Blanks (removes all CR/LF/tab characters and trims).
Trim: End Trims the last Length characters.
Trim: Start Trims the first Length characters.
Trim: Start & End Trims the first and last Length characters.
Get: Index Of Returns the start position of Look For value in the From value (1 based). The Look for can be a regular expression or %variable% replacement.
Get: Left Get the last Length characters.
Get: Right Get the first Length characters.
Get: SubString Get Length characters starting at Start Position. If Start Position is not a number then the value of Start Position will be searched in the From value - and the search position will be used (if found).
Get: Length Returns the character length of the From value.
Extract: JSON Path Get a specific Json Path value from Json text specified in the From valu
Extract: Regex Get one or all matches of the Regex Pattern.
Replace: Regex Replace one or more Regex Pattern matches with a replace pattern.
Set: Format Returns a formatted value of the From value. The Format can be any .NET format. For example: 'The delivery date is {0:d}' would return 'The delivery date is 1/1/2021' if From contained a date value.
Mask: Inside Replaces Length characters starting from Start Position with * characters.
Mask: Profanity Replaces all profanity words with * characters.
Mask: Credit Card Numbers Replaces all Credit Card numbers with * characters.
Convert: To Lower Case Returns the From value as lower case.
Convert: To Upper Case Returns the From value as upper case.
Convert: To Word Capitalized Returns the From value as Word Capitalized.
Convert: CamelCase To Words Returns the From value as words extracted from Camel Case. Eg: customerName would return 'Customer Name'
Convert: HTML To PlainText Returns the plain text version of any HTML text. (see: HTML Parsing Notes)
Convert: HTML To XML Returns the well formed XML version of any HTML text. (see: HTML Parsing Notes)
Convert: HTML To Json Converts HTML to XML and then converts the XML to Json. (see: HTML Parsing Notes)
Convert: HTML To Markdown Converts HTML to Markdown.
Convert: Markdown To HTML Converts Markdown to HTML.
Convert: CSV To HTML Table Converts CSV text into a HTML table.
Convert: CSV To Markdown Table Converts CSV text into a Markdown table.
Convert: CSV To Json Array Converts CSV text into a Json array.
Convert: Json To CSV Converts Json/Json Array text into CSV text with headers.
Convert: XML To Json Converts XML text into Json.
The 'Sub String' and 'Get Index Of' use 1 based index positions. 'Get Index Of' will return 0 if the Look For value is not found.

The Preview will show a preview of the operation. This is useful to check how the operation will work. The preview however will not show if the From text is a %variable% replacement (since the value will not be known until the Automation executes).

Select the variable to receive the result from the Assign To list.

HTML Conversion Notes

For the Text Operation action, when converting HTML to plain text, Markdown, JSON or XML there are a number of additional options:

  • Suppress Links : If enabled then links will be removed before conversion.
  • Suppress Images : If enabled then images will be removed before conversion.
  • Drop Tags : You can enter a comma separated list of tags to remove from the HTML before conversion. This can be useful for removing navigation blocks and footers, if you only need the page content (eg: <nav> and <footer> tags). Specify tag names (without enclosing < and > characters, eg: nav,footer)
  • Drop Tags With Class/Id Names : You can enter a comma separated list of class and/or id names. Any tags with matching class or ID names will be removed from the HTML before conversion.
Regular Expression Extract

For the Text Operation action, the Extract: Regex operation allows you to extract data from the From entry based on a regular expression in the Regex Pattern entry. If All Matches is enabled then all matches are returned (one per line).

For example if the From text is set to:


Product Code Quantity
A1234        1              

And the Regex Pattern is set to ''A[0-9]{4}'' - which means any text starting with 'A' followed by 4 numbers (0-9). Then the returned text would be 'A1234'.

Regular Expression Replace

For the Text Operation action, the Replace: Regex operation allows you to search for regular expression patterns and then perform a replacement on the matches. The replace pattern can contain substitutions.

For example if the From text is set to:


Phone Number: 4075452119              

And Regex Pattern is set to "(?(\d{3}))?[\s-]?(\d{3})-?(\d{4})" and the Replace With set to "($1) $2-$3". Then the returned text would be "Phone Number: (407) 545-2119".