Pulling Characters from a string

Ken:

Some time ago, I had to parse a string based on a character delimiter. Appended is the function using your test code. 4GL doesn't do these functions real well since the strings passed are fixed length.

I have a number of string related 4GL functions. Should I add a FAQ to this forum?

Regards,


Ed


MAIN
DEFINE
tmp_string CHAR(20),
ret_string CHAR(10),
cnt SMALLINT

LET cnt = 1
LET tmp_string = "EN;TJ;KI"
# while loop breaks at the 4th loop
WHILE cnt > 0
CALL parse_str(";", cnt, tmp_string) RETURNING ret_string, cnt
END WHILE

END MAIN

# This function searches string for an instance of char_delim
# starting at position cnt and returns the string ending at the next
# char_delim or the end of string
FUNCTION parse_str(char_delim, cnt, string)
DEFINE
char_delim CHAR(1), # character delimiter
cnt SMALLINT, # postion in string to start counting
string CHAR(300), # string to search
ret_string CHAR(40), # string returned
i, # index
x, # counter
string_len SMALLINT # string length

LET string_len = LENGTH(string)

IF string_len = 0 # got a null string
THEN
RETURN "",0
END IF

IF string[cnt] = char_delim
THEN
LET cnt = cnt + 1 # get off the delimiter
END IF
IF cnt > string_len
THEN # return when the end of the string is reached
RETURN "",0
END IF

LET x = 1
FOR i = cnt TO string_len
IF string = char_delim
THEN
EXIT FOR
END IF
LET ret_string[x] = string # save a character
LET x = x + 1
END FOR

LET cnt = i # return the positon ended
RETURN ret_string, cnt
END FUNCTION

Ed,

Thanks for the response.

That would be a great idea. You guys know more about the tricks of informix than I do at this point in time.