Removing an A with regex

[brad_j_crep]

Hi, I have an address where in various spot the instead of an address I get something like 'A' or 'AAAAA.'  I've tried using a regex_replace(address, (A*), "")  but it ends up getting right of every 'A.'  What I'd like is for it to leave the field blank if there are only 'A' s in it.  Is there a way to remove the 'A's?

Thank you,

Brad 

[MarqueeCrew · Accepted solution]

Try this ....

regex_match([Text],"a{1,}?")

Cheers,

Mark

[brad_j_crep]

Awesome!  Thanks!  New to the regex thing.  Making my way.

Can you explain the "a{1,}?" part?  I understand a is the letter I'm looking for and {1,} would be starting at the beginning and going to whenever?  what does the '?' do?

Thanks!

BRad

[MarqueeCrew · Accepted solution]

a{1,} is looking for 1 or more a's

? is looking for 0, 1 or more occurrences of the preceding argument.

i tried the combination and got lucky on my first try :)

Cheers,

Mark

[Ned · Accepted solution]

For completeness sake:.

? is 0 or 1 of something.  "a?bc" will match "abc" and "bc" but not "aabc".  Same as a{0,1}bc

+ is 1 or more of something. "a+bc" will match "abc" and "aabc" but not "bc".  Same as a{0,1}bc

* is 0 or more of something.  "a*bc" will match "abc" and "aabc" and "bc".  Same as a{0,}bc

Try http://regexr.com/ for testing out regular expressions - its really helpful.

[brad_j_crep]

Wow!  The RegExr is awesome.  It's really helping with my data prepping!  Thanks for the tip!

Brad

[MarqueeCrew]

Glaaaaaaaaaaaad to lend aaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaand.