Question

I have an XML document that has end times in there, I need to change the format from this

end="00:00:09:02">

to this

end="00:09.02">

so basically the first two numbers and colon deleted, and the last colon replaced by a period.

I have hundreds to change, and was trying to figure out how to do edit them all using a script of some sort, does anyone have any suggestions?

Here is the original line:

    <p start="00:00:13:23" EndTimecode="00:00:17:02" Title='Let’s start with RIM and
the High Velocity Sector.'/>

Here is what I need to end up with:

    <p begin="00:13.23" end="00:17.02">Let’s start with RIM and
the High Velocity Sector.</p>

I have updated my question due to discovering that find and replace is the best option.

Answer 1

One way would be regexp.

Regexp: /(?:EndTimecode="[0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2})(?:")/

Replace String: end="$1:$2.$3"

You would use it like so:

1. Read the xml file and store it into a var (call it $contents)
2. $contents = preg_replace('/(?:EndTimecode="[0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2})(?:")/', 'end="$1:$2.$3"', $contents);
3. Save back to file using the new data in $contents

Create a backup first or write it to a new tmp file!

Edit: See above. The only change was in the regexp. (?:end was changed to (?:EndTimecode

Edit2: I hope they all look the same. Try this

Regexp: /<p start="[0-9]{2}:([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2})" EndTimecode="[0-9]{2}:([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2})"\sTitle='(.+?)'/>/

Replace String: <p begin="$1:$2.$3" end="$4:$5.$6">$7</p>