Text expressions

Manju_Lekha_Singaram
updated 1 yr ago

Text expressions can be used with text fields. Text area fields cannot use expressions.

Kissflow will sometimes refer to a sequence of characters in an expression as a string. Strings are parts of text expressions.

Example fields

For all of these examples, let’s assume that we have the following text field:

Field ID	Field Type	Value
text1	Text	Stark Industries

Functions

A function goes at the start of the expression.

Function	Description	Syntax	Output
Concatenate	Connects up to 255 strings	CONCATENATE(text1, “, Inc”)	Stark Industries, Inc

Methods

Methods come after the fieldID and are called up with a dot operator.

Function	Data type	Description	Syntax	Output
toUpperCase	Text	Makes all characters upper case.	text1.toUpperCase()	STARK INDUSTRIES
toLowerCase	Text	Makes all characters lower case.	text1.toLowerCase()	stark industries
trim	Text	Removes any spaces at the start and end.	text1.trim()	Stark Industries
replace	Text	Replaces case-sensitive characters with others. Specify which occurrence of the character you want to replace.	text1.replace("s", "x") text1.replace("s", "x", 2)	Stark Induxtriex Stark Industriex
find	Number	Shows the first location of a character in a string. Add from which position to start looking. It is case sensitive by default; to make it insensitive, add true().	text1.find("s") text1.find(“s”, 12) text1.find(“s”, 1, true())	11 16 1
substring	Text	Shows a defined range of characters in the string.	text1.substring(1,3)	Sta
length	Number	Shows the number of characters in a string.	text1.length()	16

Converting values to a text field

The toText method converts different data types to a text field.

Here are some more sample field IDs and values:

NumField = 24.526
CurField = USD $24.52
DateField = 05/29/1971
Datetimefield = 05/29/1971 9:35 AM

Change	Description	Syntax	Output
Number to Text	Converts a number value to a text value. Add formatting options to give placeholders. When decimal places are included, the number will be rounded.	numfield.totext() numfield.totext(“.00”) numfield.totext("0000")	“24.526” “24.53” "0024"
Currency to Text	Converts a currency value to a text value. Add formatting options.	curfield.totext(“0.00”)	“24.50”
Date to Text	Converts a date value to a text value. DD=Day MM=Month YY, YYYY=Year	datefield.totext(“DD/MM/YY)	“29/05/71”
Datetime to Text	Converts a datetime value to a text value. 24 hour format - HH=Hour, MM=Minute 12 hour format - H:M AM/PM displays AM or PM	datetimefield.totext(“DD/MM/YY H:M AM/PM”)	“29/05/71 09:35 AM”

1. To use real-time exchange rates, use a remote lookup field.

Method	Syntax	Input type	Output type	Explanation
extractText	Remotelookup_Fieldname.extractText(<path>, <index>)	Remotelookup_Fieldname: JSON OBJECT<path>: TEXT (valid json path)<index>: TEXT	LIST{TEXT}TEXT	Extracts and returns a text array from the JSON object as filtered by the provided json path. If the index is provided then the text in the particular index is extracted.

Validating a text expression using regex

A regular expression(i.e. regex) is a sequence of characters that refers to a search pattern. You can use a regex to find whether a specific pattern is found in the text that's fed as the input.

Navigate to the process form and hover over the text field for which you would like to write a regex.
Click the Validation icon and click +Add a validation rule in the right panel that's displayed automatically.
Select Regex from the list.
Enter the regex expression without back-slashes in the Regex field. If you are trying to copy the regex from an external source, please remember to paste only the expression without the preceding and trailing backslashes. i.e. You have to type or paste the expression directly in the Regex field.
1. Kissflow does not support regexes wrapped within a pair of backslashes. i.e. "/<regex>/" will not work.
Click Customize error message if you would like to display a specific error message if the regex doesn't match with the input text. However, if you do not set a customized error message, the system will display a default error message.
Save your changes and publish the workflow.

Note:

We do not support the 'i' (Ignore case) and 'm' (Multiline) flags in the regular expression. i.e. You cannot match an expression by ignoring its case or against a multi-line text.

In the following example, we have used a regex to check if a text field contains only uppercase letters.

We recommend you are familiar with the following regex rules to validate text inputs easily.

Regex to match a single character or a set of characters in a string:

Format to search characters	Description	Sample Regex expression	Example
[character_group]	Matches any single character present in the character group present in the regex. Note: The match is case-sensitive by default.	[xyz]	If the input text is "xerox", the regex [xyz] will find 2 matches - "x","x".
[^ character_group]	Matches any single character that's not present in the character group present in the regex. Note: The match is case-sensitive by default.	[^xyz]	If the input text is "xerox", the regex [^xyz] will find 3 matches - "e","r","o".
[first character - last character]	Matches any single character that's present anywhere in the character range mentioned in the regex from the first to the last. Note: Since the regex matches are always case-sensitive, make sure to have capital letters if you want to search only for letters in uppercase.	[A-Z] [a-z] [1-9]	The regex [A-Z] checks for alphabets in uppercase in the input text. For example, the input text "AY976R" will have 3 matches - "A", "Y", and "R". The regex [a-z] checks for alphabets in lowercase only. For example, the input text "apple" will have 5 matches as all the letters in the string are in lowercase. The regex [1-9] checks for numbers from 1 to 9 in the input text. For example, the input text "00008" will have 1 match as the number "0" is not present in the regex format so the regex matches only with the number 8.
.	Matches any single character or set of characters present between the letter preceding the period and the letter following the period in the input text. Note: If you want to match a period character literally, then you can escape the character like "\." in the regex	m.t \.	The regex m.t matches with "market" in "marketing" and "mkt" in "mkt004". The regex \. matches with "." in "google.com" and does not match with any character in "googleTV"
\d	Matches any decimal digit	\d \d{3}	The regex \d matches with "4","5",and "6" in the string "4.56", "3","8",and "9" in the string "3abcde89". The regex \d{3} matches with "123" in the string "1234" and "263", and "451" in the string "263451". This regex will find a match if there are three consecutive digits present in the input text. So, the regex will not be able to find a match if the input text is "abc78".

Regex to match a string pattern based on its position:

Format to validate the position of the search string

Description

Sample Regex expression

Example

The match must be present at the beginning of the string.

Note: If it is a multi-line text, it is considered as the beginning of the line.

^\d{3}

Input text A: 263451

Input text B: 1234

Input text C: abc789

The regex ^\d{3} will match only if three consecutive digits are present at the beginning of the input text so it will match with "263" in A, "123" in B, and nothing in C.

Regex to match a specific string pattern logically:

Format to validate the string based on logic

Description

Sample Regex expression

Example

Matches any one pattern separated by the vertical bar.

wh(o|at|ich)

(o|at|ich)

Input string A= "Who are you?"

Input string B= "What is your name?"

Input string C = "Which is your notebook?"

This regex wh(o|at|ich) matches with "who" in A, "what" in B, and "which" in C.

The regex (o|at|ich) matches with "o" twice in A, "at" once, and "o" once in B, "ich" once, and "o" four times in C.

Commonly used regex patterns:

You can make a note of the most commonly used regular expressions here. You can directly copy a regex and paste it into the Regex field to use it.

What does the regex validate?	Description	Regular expression	Example with output
Whole numbers	Checks whether the input text has only whole numbers or not.	^\d+$	Input string A = "345" Input string B= "2.56" The regex matches "345" in A and does not match with anything in B.
Decimal numbers	Checks whether the input text contains only decimal numbers or not.	^\d*\.\d+$	Input string A = "345" Input string B= "2.56" The regex does not match with anything in A and matches "2.56" in B.
Whole numbers and Decimal numbers	The regex matches if the input text has either of the two - whole numbers or decimal numbers. But it will not match if the input contains positive or negative numbers.	^\d*(\.\d+)?$	Matches: 5.0 3 0.0 Does not match: -3.5 +2.5 +2 -3
Alphanumeric characters without space	Checks whether the input text is a combination of both alphabets and numbers without a space.	^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$	Matches: hello what Does not match: how are you?
Common email IDs	This regex can be used to match the most commonly used email address formats.	^([a-zA-Z0-9._%-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6})*$	Matches: email@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com email@subdomain.example.com Does not match: firstname+lastname@example.com // this is actually valid email@123.123.123.123 email@[123.123.123.123] "email"@example.com
Password strength	This regex can be used to check whether a password set is strong or not. It checks if the input text has 1 lowercase letter, 1 uppercase letter, 1 number, 1 special character, and is at least 8 characters long.	(?=(.[0-9]))(?=.[\!@#$%^&()\\[\]{}\-_+=~`\|:;"'<>,./?])(?=.[a-z])(?=(.[A-Z]))(?=(.)).{8,}	Matches: Pa$$wYu893 Does not match: rty34
Username	Checks whether the username includes _ and – having a length of 3 to 16 characters.	^[a-z0-9_-]{3,16}$	Matches: hie helloWorld hello_world hello-world Does not match: hello@world hellp!world
URL (https protocol)	Checks whether the entered URL has the "https" protocol.	`https?:\/\/(www\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,6}\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#()?&//=]*)`	Does not match: www.google.com Matches: https://www.google.com
URL (protocol is optional)	Checks whether the entered URL is valid and the "https" protocol validation is optional.	`(https?:\/\/)?(www\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,6}\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)`	Matches: www.google.com https://www.google.com
Date format	Checks for the date format YYYY-MM-DD	([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]\|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]\|[12]\d\|3[01]))	Matches: 2008-09-31 1600-12-25 Does not match: 1942-11-1 1942-11-0 1942-00-25
Date format	Checks for the date format DD MM YYYY with one of these separators - / , . , or -	^(?:(?:31(\/\|-\|\.)(?:0?[13578]\|1[02]))\1\|(?:(?:29\|30)(\/\|-\|\.)(?:0?[1,3-9]\|1[0-2])\2))(?:(?:1[6-9]\|[2-9]\d)?\d{2})$\|^(?:29(\/\|-\|\.)0?2\3(?:(?:(?:1[6-9]\|[2-9]\d)?(?:0[48]\|[2468][048]\|[13579][26])\|(?:(?:16\|[2468][048]\|[3579][26])00))))$\|^(?:0?[1-9]\|1\d\|2[0-8])(\/\|-\|\.)(?:(?:0?[1-9])\|(?:1[0-2]))\4(?:(?:1[6-9]\|[2-9]\d)?\d{2})$	Matches: 01/01/2000 31/01/2000 Does not match: 32/01/2000