InDesign CS6 and C# (Regular expression)

Question

GREP does not work
//CODE
InDesign.Application InDesignApp = (InDesign.Application)Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetTypeFromProgID("InDesign.Applicati on"));
InDesignApp.Activate();
//Create Document
InDesign.Document InDesignDoc = InDesignApp.Documents.Add();
//PageWidth
InDesignDoc.DocumentPreferences.PageWidth = Convert.ToDouble(numericUpDown_width.Value);
//PageHeight
InDesignDoc.DocumentPreferences.PageHeight = Convert.ToDouble(numericUpDown_height.Value);
InDesignDoc.DocumentPreferences.PageOrientation = idPageOrientation.idPortrait;
InDesignDoc.DocumentPreferences.PagesPerDocument = 50;
InDesignDoc.DocumentPreferences.StartPageNumber = 1;
InDesign.Page page = (InDesign.Page)InDesignDoc.Pages[1];
InDesign.Layer layer = (InDesign.Layer)InDesignDoc.Layers[1];
//Place *.docx in Document
page.Place("C:\\sample.docx", new[] { 0, 0 }, layer, false, true);
InDesign.Document Doc = (InDesign.Document)InDesignApp.ActiveDocument;
//Clear the find/change grep preferences
InDesignApp.FindGrepPreferences = idNothingEnum.idNothing;
InDesignApp.ChangeGrepPreferences = idNothingEnum.idNothing;
//Set the find options
InDesignApp.FindChangeGrepOptions.includeFootnotes = true;
InDesignApp.FindChangeGrepOptions.includeHiddenLayers = true;
InDesignApp.FindChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = true; ;
InDesignApp.FindChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = true;
InDesignApp.FindChangeGrepOptions.includeMasterPages = true;
//Regular expression for finding an email address
InDesignApp.FindGrepPreferences.findWhat = "(?i)[A-Z]*?@[A-Z]*?[.]...";
Doc.FindGrep();
//Apply the change to 24-point text only
InDesignApp.FindGrepPreferences.pointSize = 28;
InDesignApp.ChangeGrepPreferences.underline = true;
Doc.ChangeGrep();
//Clear the find/change grep preferences
InDesignApp.FindGrepPreferences = idNothingEnum.idNothing;
InDesignApp.ChangeGrepPreferences = idNothingEnum.idNothing;
//END CODE
where am I wrong?

Answer 1

For the beginning you're in the wrong forum, this is the place for C++ plugin development.
Whether using C# (a strongly typed language) to access the scripting API (which prefers weakly typed scripting languages) is wrong lies in the eye of the beholder.
Then you should add some more prose. At least rephrase the problem, why you think that grep does not work. Does it find nothing, or too much? Do you have no visual feedback of the operation? Does it throw an error? Does it just clear the findings?
From just looking at your script:
- Why do you need two document variables?
- You set the find preferences after you invoke FindGrep()
- the comment says 24 point but the value is 28 point. Are you sure about either, the actually applied value might be 23.98?
- the only purpose of FindGrep() is to find and yield the findings for further processing by a script. Use the result or remove the statement. Doc.ChangeGrep later on implies a FindGrep.
- You only set the underline flag, but there are many more attributes involved with underlines (depends on the effective style) such as underline color or underline stroke width and so forth.
- the findWhat value ends with 3 dots, it might not be what you want.
- The question mark in "*?" is redundant. Twice.
- I won't even try to understand more of your grep expression. For such issues there is the interactive mode of InDesign called "UI". It has many fancy windows, dialogs and panels where you can experiment with various settings before you turn them into a script. I'd especially recommend the Find/Change dialog (you can try and tweak the grep string until it breaks) and the underline options dialog of the character attributes panel.
At least in JavaScript you can later on dump the "properties" property of any native object in order to copy the working values into your script. So you also make sure you don't miss the better half of them. It should not be too hard to translate that JSON into C#.
e.g. type this in ExendScript Toolkit console
$.writeln(app.findGrepPreferences.properties.toSource());
$.writeln(app.selection[0].properties.toSource());
Finally
- consider to set the changeTo value to an appropriate expression.
- consider to use the dynamically evaluated grep styles instead of that script.
- Probably I missed a few points.
Dirk