Write an external method in python that uses regsub.sub or regsub.gsub functions. This allows you to do regular expression substitutions. regsub.sub does a replace on the first match only regsub.gsub does a replace on all matches Ex: import regsub def process_a_string(self): """Processes a string, where string is passed as self""" result=regsub.gsub('[ \t][ \t]+', ' ', self) #Filters all duplicate spaces and return result #tabs down to one space char where somestring is our example attribute call this in dtml: <dtml-var expr="process_a_string(somestring)"> is somemethod is a method returning a string: <dtml-var expr="process_a_string(somemethod())"> Sean -----Original Message----- From: Chris Beaumont [mailto:cbeaumon@msri.org] Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:43 PM To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] way to cleanup form input text? Is there a simple way to clean up text that's input to HTML forms in Zope? I have a situation where one of my users is copying text from her web browser and pasting it into Zope. I'm sure this is a common problem.. The input text ends up having runs of whitespace characters in it that I'd like to prune down to one each..and I think it's also been the source of some non-standard, unwanted characters that cause problems if they end up getting into our database.. I'm sure someone else has encountered this problem before..what's the best way to fix it? The string module doesn't seem to have what I want.. (or at least I couldn't find it..) The worst problems seems to be long strings of spaces or tabs that I'd like to turn into single spaces..(each) Thanks! Chris cbeaumon@msri.org _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )