Maxscript Gurus: Basic find/replace within txt file?

[White Wizard]

Got a nice little script for importing focus distance metadata per frame into 3dsmax. However the timecode column includes colons, which messes up my script. A simple workaround has been to find/replace ":" with "" in notepad before import.

I'd love to add this functionality to my maxscript instead to further optimize my workflow. Does anybody know how?

(

theFilename = getOpenFileName types:"Arri Metadata (*.csv)|*.CSV|All Files (*.*)|*.*"

--csv file requires 3 tab delimited columns (frame number | timecode | focus distance in inches)

if theFilename != undefined and (isProperty $ #focus_distance ) do ( --if a valid filename picked    
    local theFile = openFile theFilename --open the file
    skipToNextLine theFile --skip the header row
    while not eof theFile do ( --loop until the end of file

        framenum=(readValue theFile)
        timecode=(readValue theFile)
        focusdistance=(readValue theFile)

        with animate on (
            at time framenum $'Render Cam'.focus_distance = focusdistance
            )

        )
    )


)

[suurland]

substituteString is basically find and replace.

[White Wizard]

Thanks For anybody else interested, a user named Swordslayer on reddit offered a nice solution to my question. See below.

Since you're just skipping the timecode, you could use filterString (change the comma to "\t" or " " if the CSV is not actually comma-separated) and pick only the first and last values:

fn setFocusData cam = if isProperty cam #focus_distance do  
 (         local filename = getOpenFileName types:"Arri Metadata (*.csv)|*.CSV|All Files (*.*)|*.*"
    if filename == undefined do return messageBox "Pick a file."
     local lines = (dotNetClass "System.IO.File").ReadAllLines filename
    if lines.count <= 1 do return messageBox "No data to parse."
     deleteItem lines 1 --skip the header row
     with animate on for line in lines do
    (         local values = filterString line ","
        at time (values[1] as integer) cam.focus_distance = values[3] as float
    ) )
setFocusData $