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Parsing and extracting 16 digit numbers from text string using Flow

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Posted on by vbbvbb Microsoft Employee

Hello all,

Looking for ideas if it's possible to use with current PA implementations of substring/split/trim etc functions.

There's a Flow with a query which keep querying database and return various values which are later stored into Sharepoint.

These outputs would be always random, but most times would contain 16-digit numeric values, for example:

Output 1:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur [ 1234567890123456 adipiscing elit.

Output 2:

Lorem ipsum dolor | 9876543210987654 |sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Output 3:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Output 4:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit 5432109876543210.

Providing such randomness, is it possible to build function which would parse these text stings and if there's 16 digit number encountered, it would parse and extract these values? I assume that substring is not usable due to changing location of this number, what can be best next alterative? Thanks for any ideas!

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Using flows

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VictorIvanidze 13,083 on at

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Try to use this approach: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70685773/how-do-i-extract-a-string-of-numbers-from-random-text-in-power-automate
vbbvbb Microsoft Employee on at

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Thanks @VictorIvanidze , I have seen that regex approach but it's not possible to use HTTP action in the environment due to security reasons -- but also in this example it's unnecessary as , technically, SPO actions in Flow return most of outputs in JSON, so can try to couple that with Parse JSON and see if it would get results. I have discarded that approach earlier but maybe worth giving a try to modify.
VictorIvanidze 13,083 on at

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Alternatively you can use a "brute force" approach - find the first digit in the body and check if the next symbol is also a digit iteratively.
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vbbvbb Microsoft Employee on at

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Solved with this approach/script : https://www.tachytelic.net/2021/04/power-automate-regex/ , it's way more simple and allow Regex \d{16} filter without need to use HTTP connector.