Welcome to the next module of this course, introduction to string and DataTable manipulation. In the previous module, you understood data manipulation, the different operations performed on it. You also saw how the data can be converted from one type to another using the data conversion technique. By the end of this module, you will be able to understand string manipulation, understand DataTable manipulation. Let's begin this lesson where you will understand strings and the use of different operations and activities for string manipulation. In the variables lesson, you learned that a string is the data type that contains any sequence of characters. Almost every automation scenario involves the use of strings as they are used when text needs to be captured, processed, sent between applications, or displayed. In Studio, several operations can be performed for manipulation. Let's understand each one of them. Let's start with the concat method. This method concatenates the string representations of two specified objects. In the following expression, two string variables named FirstName and LastName are being concatenated. The output data type for this expression will be string with the combined values of both the variables. For example, if FirstName had a value Smith and LastName Jones, the output value will be SmithJones. Second, the contains method. This method checks whether a specified substring occurs within a string. This method returns a Boolean value that is either true or false. In the following expression, the occurrence of string Bucharest is being checked in the string variable named PostalAddress. If Bucharest will be present in the address, the output will be true, else false. Third, the format method. This method converts the value of objects to strings based on the format specified and inserts them into another string which reduces complexity and increases readability. For example, there are two string variables named FirstName and CityName. By using the following expression, they are assigned zero and one position respectively. The output of this expression will be Smith lives in Bucharest, and the output data type will be of a string type. Forth, the IndexOf method. This method returns a zero-based index of the first occurrence of a character in a string. In the following expression, the index of character i is the string variable FirstName, where the value Smith is extracted. The output will be two, and the output data type for this expression will be integer. Fifth, the join method. This method concatenates the elements in a collection and displays them as a string. In the following expression, the elements welcome, to, and UiPath, present an array variable, Arr_WelcomeMessage, or concatenated using space as a separator. The output will be welcome to UI path, and the output data type for this expression will be string. Sixth, the replace method. This method identifies a sequence of characters of string type in a text and replaces it with a given string. For example, there is a variable FullName with the value Smith Jones in it. Now, if you have to replace Smith with Brandon, by using the following expression, the name Smith will be replaced with Brandon. The output will be Brandon Jones and the output data type for this expression will be string. Seventh, the split method. This method splits a string into substrings based on a certain criteria set by the user. This separator can be a space, a comma, or a full stop. In the following expression, the string variable named WelcomeMessage with the value Welcome to UiPath is split using space as a separator. The output will be UiPath for index value two as the data type for this expression is array of string. Eighth, the substring method. This method extracts a substring from a string using the starting index and the length. It is used to isolate or separate a substring from the original string. In this expression, the string welcome is extracted from the string variable named as WelcomeMessage which holds the message Welcome to UiPath. The start index for the string welcome is zero and the length of the string welcome is seven. The output data type for this expression will be string. Now let's proceed further to understand the activities for string manipulation in Studio. The first one is modify text. This activity updates a text value using modifications, including find and replace, trim, combining, or concatenating with another text value and change to upper/lowercase. When you drag and drop this activity in the designer panel, you will see several options in the activity. The text and modify field, which you can see at the top, will take the text which you want to modify in a string format. Now it's time to select the modification which you want to perform on the string you provided. You can select the modification from the ad modification drop-down. The drop-down has four modification options : Find and replace, combine text, trim, text to upper/lower. Let's talk about the first modification option on the list which is find and replace. Open the drop-down and select this modification. You will notice a find and replace activity appearing below the Text to modify field. In this activity, you can provide input into the Search for field. The text you enter here will be searched in the text which is there in the Text to modify field. Next, you have the Replace with field. The search text will be replaced with the text you enter in this field, you can take a string variable in the Save result as field, which will save the results. This activity behaves like any standard find and replace feature you come across in other applications. The second modification option in the list is Combine text. This activity will concatenate or combine the text with the existing text in the Text to modify field. You have two options here. The left option will combine the text to the left and the right option will combine the text to the right. The third modification option in the list is Trim. Trim option strips or deletes the leading and trailing spaces from a string variable. You can select left, right, or both options as per the requirement. The fourth modification option is Text to Upper/Lowercase. As the name depicts, this modification converts the text to uppercase or lowercase as selected by the user. These modifications can be used singularly or in combination. Now let's come to the test button. This button is designed to test the output of the modification applied to the string. Let's move on to the next activity for string manipulation, which is text to left or right. This activity has four fields in it. They are: Full text, Separator, Save text to left as, Save text to right as. Full text and Separator are input fields and the other two are output fields. In the Full text field, the desired text to be split into left and right component based on separator input is inserted. In the Separator field, the separator, which is to be used to split the full text into left and right is inserted. Whatever separator you provide in this field will be searched in the full text field. Save text to left field stores the left of the separator and text to right store the text right to the separator. The user has to specify the variable name in which the output has to be stored. For example, if in the full text field you have the text, You are learning RPA specialization course and space is specified in the separator field, then the word you and the rest of the sentence will be separated. The output value you will be stored in the MessageLeft variable and the rest of the sentence in MessageRight respectively. Please note that this activity looks for the first occurrence of the separator specified in the separator field. That's it for this video. Next in this lesson is a video demonstration of string manipulation. Thank you for watching.
