Removing control Characters from a variable

[Stuboy]

Hi,

I have created a pdf tool to automate plotting pdf's (setting ctb, page size etc) this also includes naming the pdf where I used someone else's code to return the text string from two attributes to create the a variable "filename" (drawing no and revision tags). this works great so long as the drawing number doesn't have control characters.

The drawingno tags input is RW0000-00/C.C02/0001 

I want it to take all the letters and numbers removing control characters so it becomes RW000000C020001 

I have managed to find this code (while (vl-string-search "/" filename) (setq filename (vl-string-subst "" "/" filename))) Which has removed the "/" how do I can I add the "-" and "." to this code.

Thanks in advance

SB

[Ranjit_Singh]

One example

(setq dat (mapcar 'ascii '("-" "." "/")))
(vl-list->string (vl-remove-if '(lambda (x) (member x dat)) (vl-string->list "RW0000-00/C.C02/0001")))

[devitg · Accepted solution]

try it , rude as a flintstone work 

(setq filename "RW0000-00/C.C02/0001") 


 


(setq esp#-list ( list "?" "_" "-" "." "," "/"))

(setq filename
(foreach esp# ESP#-LIST 

  (while (vl-string-search esp# filename) (setq filename (vl-string-subst "" esp# filename)))
filename
  
  )
)
                  
 

[Stuboy]

perfect devitg thanks legend

[Stuboy]

thanks mate

[Kent1Cooper]

---

@Stuboy wrote:
....

The drawingno tags input is RW0000-00/C.C02/0001 

I want it to take all the letters and numbers removing control characters so it becomes RW000000C020001 

.... 

---

Here's a way that doesn't remove just those particular three or six characters or any group of characters explicitly spelled out, but takes out anything  that's not a letter or number:

(setq newname ""); initially empty string

(foreach char (vl-string->list filename)

  (if (wcmatch (chr char) "@,#") (setq newname (strcat newname (chr char))))

); foreach

When applied to your example as the 'filename' variable, it returns

"RW000000CC020001"

[I assume you meant to have both  C's in there, despite one being missing from your sample result string.]

[Stuboy]

Thanks Kent, always a wealth of knowledge, helped me out a lot over the years, this is code I can apply to a few lisps I have