Need help with trimming

[David_B]

I have a field for first name and last name where people routinely throw in an extra space after the name so that it will be "john " instead of “john”. I am unfamiliar with js but I would imagine there is an easy script that would trim that last " " off the first name. Help please!

David

[Bill_French]

David_B:

I would imagine there is an easy script that would trim that last " " off the first name.

Yep…

let trimmedName = name.trim();

[David_B]

Bill.French:

let trimmedName = name.trim

So if the Name of the Field is First Name, what would I put under the automation script section. Sorry for the silliness of the question

[Bill_French]

Hi David,

There are no silly questions, especially in software development.

David_B:

what would I put under the automation script section.

Ahhhh, that’s a very deep discussion and unlikely to remain a mystery answered without a full understanding of the table itself and any actions that occur before the script section.

Unless you acquire some essential understanding of developing in JavaScript, this thread could last well into the Spring. I recommend a quick introduction to Airtable scripting with this video.

[David_B]

Thanks for the intro - watching now. To answer your question, literally no actial will be happening other than a new entry being created in Airtable, which then needs the one field trimmed.

[Bill_French]

Take a look at this post and the code - it will help you understand what’s required to read fields and write them back changed.

Field Tweaker - Script Block for In-place Transformations Show and tell

After importing data, it’s not uncommon to want to clean up and normalize data values, especially text fields that may have all types of inconsistencies. Unfortunately, Airtable doesn’t support in-place transformations where formulas can be applied to modify the field contents of all cells. This is where the Field Tweaker script block can help. It supports in-place text transformations including upper case, lower case, and title case modifications across all records for select fields. The scrip…