Question

I have text being passed to a function. That text can contain anything, from a single character all the way to a full book.

I need to extract the first like and use it as a “title” so I can name a file where I am saving that text as a backup. I am using the following:

function GetTitle(var Text:string):string;
var
  title: string;
  position: integer;
begin
    title := '';
    position := AnsiPos(#10, Text);

    if position = 0 then
    begin
      position := AnsiPos('.', Text);
      if (position = 0) then
         title := Text
      else
         title := copy(Text, 1, position);
    end
    else
    begin
        title := copy(Text, 1, position);
    end;

    result := title;
end;

I’m checking #10 and not #13 because the text can be either passed from a Windows app or a Mac OS X app. In cases where there is no #10 I’m checking for the 1st . (dot) and if there is none then I am passing the whole thing as a title.
This approach is causing some problems with filenames containing #13 in the name or names being too long. I can add a check for > 256 on title but that’s just another thing.

Anyway, is there any way to properly read the first line (including #13#10 or #10 or #13 or . or whatever)?

I know this is simple, but I can’t seem to find a way to deal with this without having nested ifs…

code is appreciated. thank you

Answer 1

hmmm, this one works:

function TForm1.SimpleNoteGetTitle(Text:string):string;
var
  position: integer;
begin
    position := AnsiPos(#13#10, Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos(#10, Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos(#13, Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos('.', Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos(',', Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos(';', Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos('?', Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos('!', Text);
    if (position = 0) or (position > 50) then position := AnsiPos(' ', Text);

    if position = 0 then
       result := Text
    else
       result := copy(Text, 1, position - 1);
end;

UPDATED version of the function