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gg102
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| Posted: March 02 2013 at 10:42 | IP Logged
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I have run into a couple situations when working with a flat file where it would be nice to have a string function of PAD.
It would be something like:
PAD(string,L/R,fill_char,result_len)
usage:
PAD("hello","L","9",10) resulting in: "99999hello"
PAD("hello","R",".",10) resulting in: "hello....."
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dhoward
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| Posted: March 02 2013 at 13:14 | IP Logged
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gg102,
Take a look at the "fill" function and let me know if it will work for you. Your examples would be coded like this:
Code:
fill("9",5) + "hello"
"hello" + fill(".",5)
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Dave.
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gg102
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| Posted: March 02 2013 at 18:00 | IP Logged
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Thank you Dave for your input and quick response.
The "fill" function is not exactly the same.
Using "fill" you pad the string by an amount, not specify the length of the resultant string.
To do this, you have to know the source length of the string up front (at codetime not runtime).
For myself, I wrote a macro which uses the fill function.
basically, using the fill function:
if (error check) then exit
else
IF (RIGHT)
"string" + fill( "pad_char",(result_len - LEN("string") )
IF (LEFT)
fill( "pad_char",(result_len - LEN("string")) + "string"
This allows you to fill to a result_length, at runtime.
Yes, you can "get there from here" using "fill", but the PAD function does the work for ya.
Typically, the stringlen of data in a variable would not be known at codetime.
it's just easier to call:
PAD("string","R",".",LEN)
I use this in flat file use where I want to write a column of data:
date time &nbs p; description value
---------------------------------------
01/20/2013 00:00 room one &nb sp; 3
01/20/2013 00:00 light &n bsp; 5
01/20/2013 00:00 fan &nbs p; 11
01/20/2013 00:00 another function 6
01/20/2013 00:00 meter &n bsp; 22
01/20/2013 00:00 front meter 3
the stringlength of the variable data would be unknown until runtime. So to write
this in columns would be difficult without a pad function.
PAD-R for the description and PAD-L for the value
Thus the file write detail loop would be:
ph_writefile("{LOG_FILE_NAME}",0,
today() + " " +
PAD("{variable1}","R"," ",20) +
PAD("{variable2}","L"," ", 3) +
char(10) + char(13)
)
Anyways, no action required, just a suggestion.
PH ROCKS! [:P]
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gg102
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| Posted: March 02 2013 at 18:01 | IP Logged
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Well, the WEB page didn't make the columns correct but you get the idea.......
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Topic: PAD function
