Parse text file for item values

Setup, Configuration and Use Items & Sitemaps
1

Hi all, I’m attempting to retrieve values collected from my weather station to store in items. At the moment I’m doing this in an overly complicated way using a custom console application written in c#. I am wanting to move from Windows to RPi in the near future, so this will no longer be a viable option. I’m thinking there must be a fairly simple way to parse the text file, but my reading of the transformation add-ons is that none of them are quite right for the job. Following is an example of the text file:

[General]
Date=24/06/2019
Timestamp=2019-06-24T16:50:100:

[Temp]
Low=3.5
LTime=02:32
High=12.3
HTime=11:16

I would like to be able to retrieve, say High and store it in a max temp item for the day.

Appreciate any ideas/assistance!

2

Do you have control over the format your weather station is reporting? If yes, I’d suggest to use a JSON format, that one is parsable.

1 Like
3

No, unfortunately I’m not able to modify the output format.

4

in this case I’d try it with some (2?) regex statements.

5

ok thanks will give that a shot

6

Not sure what I’m doing. I’ve used val String newString = transform(“REGEX”, “High=(.*?)\n”, rawWeather), regex101 seems to be happy (although it returns multiple matches). Any regex experts able to assist?

7

In openHAB, the regex needs to match the full String, not just a line of the String.

You need something like .*High=(.*?)\n.*

8

Brilliant. That’s gotten me closer! So the only problem now is that High is used several times throughout the file and the current regex returns the last match. For example,

[General]
Date=24/06/2019
Timestamp=2019-06-24T16:50:100:

[Temp]
Low=3.5
LTime=02:32
High=12.3
HTime=11:16

[HeatIndex]
High=12.3
HTime=11:16

In the above example, the figure returned would be the heatindex high. Is it possible to stop at just the first match? Or better yet, specify which match # to keep. I’m researching regex but not figuring it out.

Thanks again for all the help!

9

If the order is consistent then specify a bit more around the string you care about.

.*LTime=.*\nHigh=(.*?)\n.*