Hi all,

I am trying without success to perform an IF statement with some masking.

The masking works fine when used as part of a WHERE statement, but I am trying to avoid running the query at all if possible:

We have many reports that are named in the convention '_aa_bbbbbbb' that we want to query, but we have some name in the style '_aaaa_bbbbbb' that we do no want to run the query for.

My original query was

TABLE FILE TEST
PRINT *
WHERE REPORT IS '_$$_$*';
WHERE USER EQ 'MARK';
END
-RUN

(There are actually many more WHERE statements but wanted to keep it simple for the example.)

What I would prefer to do is to check if the REPORT is even of the style that I want before running the query. So I have been trying:

-SET &REPORT = '_op_materials';
-IF &PROC NE '_$$_$*' THEN GOTO SKIP_QUERY;

However the mask '_$$_$*' does not match to the variable '_op_materials' like it correctly does in the Where statement.

Is this possible? Any thoughts?

Hi Mark,

Can you please try the following code:

DEFINE FILE CAR
FLD1/A12=IF COUNTRY EQ 'ENGLAND' THEN '_aa_bbbbbbb' ELSE
   IF COUNTRY EQ 'JAPAN' THEN '_aaaa_bbbbbb'  ELSE 'ZZZZZZZZZZZZ'; 
END
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT FLD1
BY COUNTRY
WHERE FLD1 IS '_$$_$*';
END

As for the dialogue manager example:
We do not support MASKing in the conditional IF test. However, the following method may be of interest:

-SET &ECHO=OFF;
-*THIS IS A GOOD ONE
-SET &REPORT = '_op_materials';
-*THIS IS A BAD ONE
-*-SET &REPORT = 'op_materials';
-SET &MYTEST=EDIT(&REPORT,'9$$9');
-IF &MYTEST NE '__' THEN GOTO SKIP_QUERY;
-TYPE  FOUND NEEDED __ , FOUND &MYTEST
-GOTO DONE
-SKIP_QUERY
-TYPE NOT FOUND NEEDED __ , FOUND &MYTEST
-DONE
-RUN
-EXIT

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Kerry

Hi Mark,

Firstly, could you update you signature so we know what release you are using. Thanks.

According to the 7.1.n help files (I had to check ) both WHERE and IF should be acceptable with the mask you are using so I cannot identify why it is not functioning for you. I have got results using both within the CAR file and I even tried defining a new field called REPORT just to see if it baulked at a possible reserved word, but no, it worked fine.

Tested it against Oracle table as well with success.

What DBMS source are you using? WHat response are you getting? What error messages ..... etc.

T

Thanks Kerry, I will give that method a try and let you know how I get on

Tony, how do I setup my signature - sorry to ask such what should be such a simple question, I have been through my profile settings and can't spot it !

We are running version 5.3.3 connecting to AS400, but soon to be upgraded to 7.1 (Or so I have been promised!)

I do not get any error message, it just does satisfy the IF statement. I think it is literally looking for what is contained in the brackets and not recognising it as a mask.

If you go into your Profile...click Edit and go about half-way down the page...there's a place for Signature. Hopefully one day this will be a mandatory field to fill out so we can alway know what people are working on.