Need help with a GREP statement

Question

I'm trying to select just the x
舌ぽう (舌鋒x) ぜっぽう (sharp) tongue じょう舌 (饒x舌) じょうぜつ garrulity, loquacity
Its always in parentheses. So I want to LookBehind for a left parenthesis then zero or more characters, and LookAhead for zero or more character followed by a parenthesis.
I thought this would work, but it doesn't: (?<=\(.?)x(?=.?\))
This one will select all the text between the parentheses, but I only want the x: (?<=\().?x.?(?=\))
I also tried this (not sure if you can have two lookbehinds...but it didn't work:
(?<=\()(?<=.?)x(?=.?)(?=\))
I'm out of ideas.

Answer 1

maxhodges0 wrote:
btw do you know if there is a way to get the WIDTH of a selection? like in points or mm?
Sure. (You *are* using a script, aren't you?) Width is can be calculated using the horizontalOffset property of an InsertionPoint (which is slightly different from a 'character', because an IP also can designate the position *after* a character).
"In points or mm" is Not Applicable. For the vast majority of functions, all measurements are in your current units. So if your current unit is millimeters and you want the distance in points, you have to use UnitValue (a function which I tend to avoid at all cost), or simply do the calculation
pts = 72 * mm / 25.4
With InsertionPoints, subtracting the first x offset from the last one, this code will show the width of a selected text:
alert (app.selection[0].insertionPoints[-1].horizontalOffset - app.selection[0].insertionPoints[0].horizontalOffset);