Elegantly remove all ASCII characters outside the range 32 -126

Hello Artisans,

I'm working on a module that includes a geocoder tool. I'm running into an issue in which the data the users are submitting to the module are copied from a web page and sometimes include weird characters (e.g. ASCII 160). This causes the geocoder problems. And by problems, I mean that the geocoder can only find the zip code when without the odd characters, it can find the address.

What I'm looking for is the most elegant way to remove any characters from a text value that fall outside of the ASCII range of 32 -126. Any characters inside that range *shouldn't* cause the geocoder problems.

Extra cool points to anyone from Alteryx that will fix incorporate this fix into the Address tool. :-)

Cheers,

John Hollingsworth

Interface Tools

Accepted answers

ToddW

I am definately in need of some extra cool points, so here is my most elegant way to remove ASCII characters outside of the range of 32-126. I was able to remove the undesired characters using RegEx (you can use the RegEx tool or the Formula tool for this) using the following expression:

[^x20-x7e]+

Everything within the brackets represents a specific set of characters to match. The x switch matches an ASCII charater using hexidecimal representation. x20-x7e translates to ASCII characters 32-126. The ^ preceeding the range indicates that we want to match anything NOT in the specified range. The + outside the brackets indicates that we want to search for this pattern in our string 1 or more times.

Using the RegEx tool:

Using the Formula tool:

rtaImage (1).jpg

Let me know if you have any questions.

Todd Williamson
Client Services Rep
Cool Points: 7

All comments

ToddW

[^x20-x7e]+

jhollingsworth

Outstanding! That was exactly what I needed.

Whenever someone uses RegEx I think of this.

Thanks Todd!

ToddW

Glad it worked out! Since posting my last response, a couple of my colleagues shared a simpler expression that accomplishes the same task:

[^ -~]

Apparently there is no need to use hexidecimal values for the ASCII charaters - you can literally type them in (please note there is a space between the carat^ and the dash-.

Todd Williamson
Client Services Rep
"Everybody stand back! I know RegEx!"

Todd,

I'm a little late with this... Smiley Happy

I've been searching for an answer and your solution worked great! Thank you for the detailed post and for following up with a more elegant solution to your initial response.

unknown

Don't forget the backslashes in the expression, which are shown in the graphic of the RegEx box but not in the accompanying text. [^\x20-\x7e]+

NotQuiteClueless

You Sir, are a star.

Jordken

This worked great for the most part: [^ -~]

However, I think I want to keep the carriage returns (13) and new line (10) characters as well. I'm still trying to figure this regex out, and I'm not getting it. Any help?

SideOfRanch

Is there a way to do this but return if the field had one of the untranslatable characters? I'm trying to identify them the fields and flag them with a 1 if they have a bad character.

MarqueeCrew

MIN(Regex_Countmatches([Garbage Data],"^[ -~]"),1)

That might help.

AGilbert

Adding another solution to the conversation.

3I_ATLAS

Indeed elegant and something I will likely be using regularly to remove 'junk' and mystery hidden characters from data coming from different platforms. Thank you!
You deserve all the EXTRA COOL points Todd!

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