Ignoring/not displaying text/numbers in string if surrounded with (), [] or <>?

Hello there,

As mentioned above, JSON might be an option. However, depending on the amount of tags you want your text to have (bold, italic, display speed, font size, font color etc...) the JSON might get a little big.

Instead, you can try this:

 using System.Collections;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
 using UnityEngine;
 
 public class StringTest : MonoBehaviour
 {
     public string myInput = "This is a test[>s:0.5s<][>fsize:14fsize<]";
 
     //Define you start and end tags here
     public string speedTagStart = "[>s:";
     public string speedTagEnd = "s<]";
     public string fontSizeTagStart = "[>fsize:";
     public string fontSizeTagEnd = "fsize<]";
 
     private void Update()
     {
         Debug.Log(ApplyDialogueLineTags(myInput));
     }
 
     public string ApplyDialogueLineTags(string dialogueLine)
     {
         //your default values
         float speed = 1.0f;
         int fontSize = 12;
 
         if (myInput.Contains(speedTagStart))
         {
             //You might want to add some security (try-catch?) here to make sure the value is correct
             speed = float.Parse(ExtractTextInBetween(speedTagStart, speedTagEnd, dialogueLine));
         }
 
         if (myInput.Contains(fontSizeTagStart))
         {
             //You might want to add some security (try-catch?) here to make sure the value is correct
             fontSize = int.Parse(ExtractTextInBetween(fontSizeTagStart, fontSizeTagEnd, dialogueLine));
         }
 
         //Do what you will with the values
         Debug.Log("speed:" + speed.ToString());
         Debug.Log("font size:" + fontSize.ToString());
 
         //Remove all the tags from the string and return it
         return Regex.Replace(dialogueLine, "\\[>.*?<\\]", string.Empty);
     }
 
     public string ExtractTextInBetween(string tagStart, string tagEnd, string input)
     {
         return input.Substring((input.IndexOf(tagStart) + tagStart.Length), (input.IndexOf(tagEnd) - input.IndexOf(tagStart) - tagStart.Length));
     }
 }
 

The code above outputs:

• speed: 0.5

• font size: 14

• This is a test

This code above allows you to have as many tags as you want, as long as you define the Start and End properly. Once all the values have been extracted, it returns the whole string without all the tags so you can display it as it should be.

Please note that I wrote this fast, I didn't include try-catch for invalid values. There may be easier ways to do this, but this should at least give you a lead.

I hope that helps!

Cheers,

~LegendBacon