Trouble sniffing out tabs in RTF

I’m running into issues identifying when tabs occur. How does DOORS treat tabs in rich text paragraphs? My ultimate goal is to replace all tabs with a space.

Here’s a sample:

TEST-Requirements
a) blah blah

Using a quick print of the current object's text including the RTF yields:

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Tahoma;}}
\viewkind4\b TEST-Requirements\b0\par
a) blah blah\par}

I'm not seeing how DOORS is looking at the tabs themselves. The typical \tab does not print with the rest of the Rich Text. Does DOORS include these RTF prefixes, and if so, how can I manipulate them?

Thanks so much!
Irons - Tue Nov 20 18:06:26 EST 2012

Re: Trouble sniffing out tabs in RTF
Mathias Mamsch - Mon Nov 26 17:47:09 EST 2012

Why would you think that DOORS does not print tabs? When I execute the following code:
 

(current Object)."Object Text" = richText "Line 1\\par\\tab Line 2\\par\\tab\\tab Line 3\\par"

Then I get the following result:

Line 1
    Line 2
        Line 3

To replace those you need to scan for \tab in the richText, but when replacing you need to take care about some special cases:

• even number (escaped) backslashes (e.g. \\tab, \\\\tab, etc. but NOT \\\tab, \\\\\tab) is the literal text \tab
• If there is a space as a termiantor after the tab you need to check, if there is an RTF keyword before. If so the terminating space must be kept, e.g. "Test\\line\\tab test" will become "Test\\line test" (with 2 spaces)
• If there is no rtf keyword before the \\tab then the terminator has to go to, e.g. "Test\\tab Text" will become "Test Text" (with 1 space).

That should do it, if you need help, just ask. Regards, Mathias

Regards, Mathias

Mathias Mamsch, IT-QBase GmbH, Consultant for Requirement Engineering and D00RS

Re: Trouble sniffing out tabs in RTF
llandale - Tue Nov 27 13:00:15 EST 2012

(current Object)."Object Text" = richText "Line 1\\par\\tab Line 2\\par\\tab\\tab Line 3\\par"

Line 1
    Line 2
        Line 3

Re: Trouble sniffing out tabs in RTF
Mathias Mamsch - Tue Nov 27 19:04:42 EST 2012

Louie you are only partially correct! One space can be a terminator for multiple RTF control words, e.g. Test\line\tab test. If you replaced the space too then you would get Test\line test which will just remove the tab, not replace it by a space. So in this case you must not replace the space, even though a space is used as a terminator.

The RTF terminators can be seen from the RTF spec by the way:
 

The "delimiter" marks the end of an RTF control word or symbol. A
delimiter can be one of the following:
 
 - A space. If a space delimits a control word, the space does not
   appear in the document. Any characters following the delimiter,
   including spaces, do appear in the document. For this reason, you
   should use spaces only where necessary; do not use spaces merely to
   break up RTF code.
 
 - A backslash (\), opening brace ({), or closing brace (}). These
   characters are used to mark the beginning of a new control word or
   symbol, the beginning of a group, and end of a group, respectively.
   More information about control symbols and groups is provided later
   in this document.
 
 - Any character other than a letter or a digit. In this case, the
   character terminates the control word but is not actually part of
   the control word. The character is considered part of the document
   text.

So a backslash or #()!, etc. these should all be valid delimiters for a control word. Did not try it by the way.

Regards, Mathias

Mathias Mamsch, IT-QBase GmbH, Consultant for Requirement Engineering and D00RS