Converting To Alpha
by Art Greenhaus

The FOCUS and WebFOCUS language supports a multitude of data formats: alpha, integer, single precision floating point (F), double precision floating point (D), packed (P), smart date, date-time and text. The numeric formats all have different uses, and it is fairly easy to convert them to other formats.

One conversion that is frequently needed is conversion to alpha. Why? Well, if you want to do any character manipulation with a field (stripping out or altering characters, appending to other strings or breaking into components for re-arrangement, to name a few), alpha strings are easier to manipulate.

Traditionally, users have used routines such as EDIT to convert a number to a character string. Unfortunately, EDIT poses certain limitations. For one, it only works with INTEGERS (How would it know how many decimal places to create?). It also adds leading zeros, so the resultant string is always the output length desired (an I6 field containing 123 would become '000123'). In addition, on some platforms you're limited to INTEGER magnitude (how much can be stored in an I4 internal format).

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This one of the best things to come aling in a long time.

The other is -READFILE.

Looks like this is a 7.7.x new feature. http://documentation.informati.../source/topic113.htm. I appears to be working fine in my 7.6.10 localhost. Interesting.

Agreed Francis. Will be so great to use FPRINT instead of whipping out my subroutine manual everytime I need to convert a value.

Max, you're right! FPRINT works in our 7.6.11 environment. Here is another take on Art's code that hilights replacing 5 separate numeric to alpha conversion routines with FPRINT.

DEFINE FILE CAR
-*
-* Set initial values
-*
  IVAL                /I6     = 99.99;
  FVAL                /F6.2   = 99.99;
  PVAL                /P5.2   = 99.99;
  YYMD_DM             /YYMD   = &YYMD;
  HYYMDS_HGETC        /HYYMDS = HGETC(8,'HYYMDS');
-*
-* Use OLD conversion routines to convert numberic values defined above to alpha
-* 
  IVAL_EDIT           /A6     = EDIT(IVAL);
  FVAL_FTOA           /A6     = FTOA(FVAL, '(F6.2)', 'A6');
  PVAL_PTOA           /A5     = PTOA(PVAL, '(P5.2)', 'A5');
  YYMD_DM_DATECVT     /A10    = EDIT(DATECVT(&YYMD,'I8YYMD','A8YYMD'),'9999/99/99');
  HYYMDS_HGETC_HCNVRT /A19    = HCNVRT(HGETC(8,'HYYMDS'),'(HYYMDS)',19,'A19');
-*
-* Use FPRINT function to convert numeric values defined above to alpha
-*
  IVAL_FPRINT         /A6     = FPRINT(IVAL,'I6','A6');
  FVAL_FPRINT         /A6     = FPRINT(FVAL,'F6.2','A6');
  PVAL_FPRINT         /A5     = FPRINT(PVAL,'P5.2','A5');
  YYMD_DM_FPRINT      /A10    = FPRINT(&YYMD,'I8YYMD','A10');
  HYYMDS_HGETC_FPRINT /A19    = FPRINT(HGETC(8,'HYYMDS'),'HYYMDS','A19');
END

TABLE FILE CAR
HEADING
"Numeric Value <+0> Old Conversion <+0> FPRINT Conversion"
PRINT IVAL         IVAL_EDIT           AS EDIT    IVAL_FPRINT         AS FPRINT OVER
      FVAL         FVAL_FTOA           AS FTOA    FVAL_FPRINT         AS FPRINT OVER
      PVAL         PVAL_PTOA           AS PTOA    PVAL_FPRINT         AS FPRINT OVER
      YYMD_DM      YYMD_DM_DATECVT     AS DATECVT YYMD_DM_FPRINT      AS FPRINT OVER
      HYYMDS_HGETC HYYMDS_HGETC_HCNVRT AS HCNVRT  HYYMDS_HGETC_FPRINT AS FPRINT     
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'ENGLAND'
ON TABLE SET PAGE NOLEAD
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
FONT='ARIAL', SIZE=9,$
TYPE=HEADING,HEADALIGN=BODY,STYLE=BOLD,SIZE=10,$
TYPE=HEADING,ITEM=1,COLSPAN=2,JUSTIFY=CENTER,BACKCOLOR='Pale Green',$
TYPE=HEADING,ITEM=2,COLSPAN=2,JUSTIFY=CENTER,BACKCOLOR='Yellow',$
TYPE=HEADING,ITEM=3,COLSPAN=2,JUSTIFY=CENTER,BACKCOLOR='Light Blue',$
END

Thanks Kerry.