or have i lost my mind?
i'm sure i remember discovering that..and now i can't find it.

REVERSE
Reverses the characters in a character string. This function is available only for
WebFOCUS.
Available Operating Systems: AS/400, HP, OS/390, UNIX, Windows
Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

This is from the using functions manual 713, it doesn't really say how to use it. I can't find better information searching the website either.

your mind seems to be with you though!

drew

From the 7.6 Doc for Data Migrator:

REVERSE(length, source_string, outfield)

where:

length
    Integer

    Is the number of characters in the source_string and outfield.

source_string
    Alphanumeric

    Is the string to reverse characters.

outfield
    Alphanumeric  

Ah. bless you both. The doc is mysteriously thin, isn't it.
this is a very useful command... eg checking the validity of an email address. REVERSE it, and then look for the posit of the 1st period.. If reading normally, even the first period after an @ isn't quite good enuf.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,

Susannah

I would love to see the end result, how you exactly test the validity of a e-mail address.
Is this at input or when you print or when you use the e-mail address in RC?

What about GETTOK?
This code:

DEFINE FILE CAR
LSTTOK/A12=GETTOK(MODEL,24,-1,' ',12,'A12');
END
TABLEF FILE CAR
PRINT MODEL LSTTOK
END

Gives these results. What is to the right of the last embedded blank (or anty other character).

MODEL LSTTOK
----- ------
V12XKE AUTO AUTO
XJ12L AUTO AUTO
INTERCEPTOR III III
TR7 TR7
504 4 DOOR DOOR
2000 GT VELOCE VELOCE
2000 SPIDER VELOCE VELOCE
2000 4 DOOR BERLINA BERLINA
DORA 2 DOOR DOOR
B210 2 DOOR AUTO AUTO
COROLLA 4 DOOR DIX AUTO AUTO
100 LS 2 DOOR AUTO AUTO
2002 2 DOOR DOOR
2002 2 DOOR AUTO AUTO
3.0 SI 4 DOOR DOOR
3.0 SI 4 DOOR AUTO AUTO
530I 4 DOOR DOOR

Frank, RC addresses should be pretty clean, so i'm looking at an incoming text file of our retail customer addresses, given at the cash register. the structure is total gibberish...and the email address is sometimes in the Phone# field, the address field, who knows. So, cleaning up a messy file is FOCUS at its most fun. The MFD reading the source file has a hundred DEFINE's in it...removing special characters, squeezing, triming, upper casing...etc etc.
The FEX reading the resultant data then starts looking for email patterns in all the fields, ie an @ sign (the most obvious), an '2AOL' or '2HOTM' indicating that the register clerk didn't quite hit the @.
Once i find something that looks like it could be an email address, i break it into 2 parts: front and back, ie (1)name and (2)@domain and suffix.
The back part, domain.suffix contains many dots.. (many reasons, some valid, some whacky)
so i want to first find the last dot.. and its relative POSIT and then evaluate whats after it for .COM, .EDU, etc, if its '.c ' then make it '.com', etc. If the POSIT of that last dot is 4, i'm in good shape; if its less than 4, i got to figure out the mostlikely suffix. If its more than 4, hmmm, probably insanity.
so, REVERSEing that back part and standardizing that suffix, then allows me to break the back part into 2 bits (2a) domain, and (2b) suffix.
Now i can clean the domain bit, taking the extra dots out of, say, 'j.p.morgan'...
Long long fex...cleans up pretty near everything..uses every text function they can come up with.
(including that GETTOK that ET mentions above) Fun to write, performs 'sheer magic' according to my users.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,

Ok Susannah
Thanks for the explanation. I love those things.
I hope you will find my email address (its with ".nl" )
and I'm sure the British will give some problems too.
You can combine things like country also.

We did something like that with address info that is put into the database with only capitals.
That's not nice when you send your most import clients a "personal" invitiation.
But changing things like "J.A.DE WIT" (that's not my name) into "J.A.de Wit" is a challenge.