Hi,

i know this is beginners stuff!! I need from a string the last six digits. I know how to do it when the string lenght is fix but the lenght is not fix.
Regards

Christian

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

Hi Christian there is a previous topic on this subject that may be of use....
http://forums.informationbuild...7006316&f=7971057331

Hi Christian,

Try using below functions

REVERSE and SUBSTR and again REVERSE.

I'm not sure if there are any other solutions.

You can take a look at character functions document on information builders.

You can attempt using SUBSTR with the support of ARGLEN to determine how long your string actually is.

-SET &MAX_LEN = 6;

DEFINE FILE CAR
CAR_LEN/I4 = ARGLEN(20, CAR, CAR_LEN);
CAR_LAST_SIX/A6 = SUBSTR(CAR_LEN, CAR, MAX(1, CAR_LEN - &MAX_LEN + 1), CAR_LEN, MIN(CAR_LEN, &MAX_LEN), CAR_LAST_SIX);
END

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT CAR AND CAR_LEN AND CAR_LAST_SIX
END

My sample code is a bit elaborate as I need to account for cases when the string actually has less than 6 characters. If you know for sure that your string will always have 6 or more characters, you can simplify the expression to just:

CAR_LAST_SIX/A6 = SUBSTR(CAR_LEN, CAR, CAR_LEN - &MAX_LEN + 1, CAR_LEN, &MAX_LEN, CAR_LAST_SIX);

Hope that helps.

Try setting you max legth to the length of your input field and then use that in your process
-SET &MAX_LEN = &INPUT.LENGTH ;
DEFINE FILE CAR
HOW_LONG/I5=ARGLEN (15, CAR, HOW_LONG);
CAR_LAST_SIX/A&INPUT.LENGTH = SUBSTR(HOW_LONG, CAR, MAX(1, HOW_LONG - &MAX_LEN + 1), HOW_LONG, MIN(HOW_LONG, &MAX_LEN), CAR_LAST_SIX);
END

quote:

Try setting you max legth to the length of your input field

The purpose of &MAX_LEN in my code is not to determine the length of the field but actually the length of the substring he wants to create.

In his request, ChristianP says that he wants the last 6 characters, so instead of hard-coding it I simply set a variable with that value which can be adjusted when business rules change. Perhaps the variable name was a bit misleading so point well taken

The .LENGTH approach is only feasible when dealing with Dialogue Manager variable but not with actual fields fetched from a database table or any other source which is the assumption I made in my example.

Thanks everybody!!! As a german proverb says: "many roads lead to rome"

Regards

Christian

njsden,

I actually used this variation of your code to search a variable length data base field for an input field that was variable in length, so thanks for the tip I really appreciate it.