Decode ascii characters to original

[rome]

Sometimes I get all sorts of ascii characters, (e.g. &), and I want to replace them with the original form (e.g. &).

After searching the web for a bit, I didn't stumble upon anything...

Have you had any experience and could share a snippet?

[necrox]

You can use the function urldecode to replace encoded characters like & in URLs.

[rome]

I actually tried that. It didn't work O_o

[necrox]

Works fine for me. Try using it this way for decoding the variable containing encoded character strings: {yourvariable:urldecode}

[rome]

Tried again. And nope. Doesn't work for me. It's not a url I'm trying to get, so maybe that's the problem.

I'm trying to decode the app description that sometimes add ascii codes.

I tried to create a new variable and give it the {variable:urldecode} but it didn't work...

[shawn]

Can you provide an example of your app profile so we can investigate?

[rome]

This is a template of portableApps I modified from the templates forum.

I'm trying to decode what's in the UserNotes tag.

 

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<Jobs>
 <ApplicationJob xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" Guid="35049824-00be-4a7b-951a-50dc65b13111">
   <Name>
  <placeholder name="Name of application" variable="appName:regexreplace:([\s\t\r\n\\&\/]+):" />
   </Name>
   <Category>
  <placeholder name="Category" options="{categories}" />
   </Category>
   <CanBeShared>false</CanBeShared>
   <CheckForUpdatesOnly>false</CheckForUpdatesOnly>
   <DeletePreviousFile>true</DeletePreviousFile>
   <DownloadBeta>Default</DownloadBeta>
   <Enabled>true</Enabled>
   <ExclusiveDownload>false</ExclusiveDownload>
   <FileHippoId />
   <FixedDownloadUrl>{dlUrl:urldecode}</FixedDownloadUrl>
   <HttpReferer>{dlRedirect:urldecode}</HttpReferer>
   <IgnoreFileInformation>false</IgnoreFileInformation>
   <PreviousLocation />
   <ShareApplication>false</ShareApplication>
   <SourceType>FixedUrl</SourceType>
   <TargetPath>{dlPath}</TargetPath>
   <UserAgent>{sfua}</UserAgent>
   <UserNotes>
  <placeholder name="Application description" variable="appDescription:urldecode"/>
   </UserNotes>
   <VariableChangeIndicator>appVersion</VariableChangeIndicator>
   <WebsiteUrl>{appWebsite}</WebsiteUrl>
   <Variables>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appDescription</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>RegularExpression</VariableType>
	    <Regex>(?<=tagline.*?<p>)(.*?)(?=</p)</Regex>
	    <Url>{dlPage}</Url>
	    <Name>appDescription</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appName</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>RegularExpression</VariableType>
	    <Regex><title>(.*?)(?=\s.+Portable)</Regex>
	    <Url>{dlPage}</Url>
	    <Name>appName</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appSource</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>PortableApps</TextualContent>
	    <Name>appSource</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appType</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>Portable</TextualContent>
	    <Name>appType</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appUpFreq</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>
		  <placeholder name="Application description" value="" options="Urgent|Monthly|Never" />
	    </TextualContent>
	    <Name>appUpFreq</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appVersion</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>RegularExpression</VariableType>
	    <Regex>(?<=Portable_.*?)[0-9.]{2,}(?=\.paf)</Regex>
	    <Url>{dlPage}</Url>
	    <Name>appVersion</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>appWebsite</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>RegularExpression</VariableType>
	    <Regex>href="([^\s]*)" learn more</Regex>
	    <Url>{dlPage}</Url>
	    <Name>appWebsite</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>dlPath</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>{startuppath}..\{appname}-{appVersion}.{dlUrl:ext}</TextualContent>
	    <Name>dlPath</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>dlPage</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>
		  <placeholder name="Application Page URL"/>
	    </TextualContent>
	    <Name>dlPage</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>dlRedirect</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>http://portableapps.com/bouncer?t=</TextualContent>
	    <Name>dlRedirect</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>dlUrl</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>RegularExpression</VariableType>
	    <Regex>[^"'=]+(?>\.exe)</Regex>
	    <Url>{dlPage}</Url>
	    <Name>dlUrl</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
  <item>
    <key>
	  <string>installPath</string>
    </key>
    <value>
	  <UrlVariable>
	    <RegexRightToLeft>false</RegexRightToLeft>
	    <VariableType>Textual</VariableType>
	    <TextualContent>{startuppath}..\{appname}</TextualContent>
	    <Name>installPath</Name>
	  </UrlVariable>
    </value>
  </item>
   </Variables>
   <SetupInstructions>
  <SetupInstruction xsi:type="CustomSetupInstruction">
    <Code>
	  {ahk} "{ahk-paf}" "{file}" "{installPath}"
	  ::Creating and renaming a custom .ini to disable splash screen
	  if exist "{installPath}\*Portable.ini" exit
	  for /f "tokens=*" %a in ('dir /b "{installPath}\Other\Source\*Portable.ini"') do (
	  set ini={installPath}\Other\Source\%a
	  set file=%a
	  )
	  For /f "tokens=*" %i in ('type "%ini%"') do if /I "%i" EQU "DisableSplashScreen=false" (echo DisableSplashScreen=true>>"{installPath}\%file%") else (echo %i>>"{installPath}\%file%")
	  for /f "tokens=*" %a in ('dir /b "{installPath}\*.exe"') do set exe=%~na
	  if exist "{installPath}\*Portable.ini" rename "{installPath}\%file%" "%exe%.ini"
	  ::Creating and renaming a custom .ini to disable splash screen
	  del "{file}" /s /q
    </Code>
    <Type>Batch</Type>
  </SetupInstruction>
   </SetupInstructions>
   <ExecuteCommand>
  /*This is a comment line, the line below is the C# script. It will run the instructions found in the Setup Tab. If the command below is encapsulated with stars and slashes merely remove them to make the command function, otherwise it will remain a comment*/
  app.Install(null);
   </ExecuteCommand>
   <ExecutePreCommand>
  if "{dlPath}" EQU "" START CMD /C "ECHO {appname}: Unable to find download, investigate & PAUSE & exit&
  if "{FixedDownloadUrl}" EQU "" if "{FileHippoId}" EQU "" START CMD /C "ECHO {appname}: Unable to find download, investigate & PAUSE & exit&
   </ExecutePreCommand>
   <ExecuteCommandType>CS</ExecuteCommandType>
 </ApplicationJob>
</Jobs>

 

Also, there was a case that I needed to urlencode a url - it had spaces, and I wanted them to be %20.

The encode, however, made spaces into '+'...

[shawn]

Assuming I understand what you're after, this:

<UserNotes>
  <placeholder name="Application description" variable="appDescription:urldecode"/>
</UserNotes>

Should be this:

<UserNotes>{appDescription:urldecode}</UserNotes>

 

URLencoding is tricky. The most common requirement for URLencoding is to convert querystrings into usable data, and querystrings (the part after the "?" in a URL) convert a space to a +. While some servers support it, spaces in the path portion of a URL are actually forbidden in the RFC - of course, that never stopped anyone. If you have complete control over the url, you could do something like this instead:

{myurl1:replace: :%20}

[rome]

Yep, that's what I ended up doing. Still weird.

About the description - that somewhat beats the purpose of having a description of the file in the information tab,

and I don't want to create another variable just for that, but I guess that would do.

 

Thanks.

[shawn]

So then you're not trying to create the notes based on a variable, but on input in the profile creation? Then I'd use this:

<UserNotes>
  <placeholder name="Application description" value="" />
</UserNotes>

It won't assign it to a 'variable' but it will be populated in the information tab.