Re: %trim

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Cozzi wrote:
> Do you mean that because a VARYING field is usually set to a length that
> is at or close to the same length of the data, that the result is that
> %trim has to do less work and therefore finishes quicker (typically)
> than when it works with a fixed length field?

Since %TRIM() is often used to determine the length of a string, and
since varying length variables hold the actual length, %TRIM() is
generally unnecessary when doing string operations on varying length
values.

(BTW, I'm sure it would be possible to improve the performance of
%TRIM() for the worst cases, with some degradation of performance
for the best cases.  But you'd *never* get to the same level of
performance that you'd get by using varying length character variables.)

Hans