Re: Anybody experienced with regular expressions and UDFs?

[Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Need to see your CREATE FUNCTION along with the prototype for the RPGLE code.

Charles

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Thomas Garvey <tgarvey@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to develop a User Defined Function that will test a given value
> against a regular expression pattern.  I've found code online by Scott
> Klement that utilizes the regcomp (Compile Regular Expression) and regexec
> (Execute Compiled Regular Expression) APIs.  I've put this into an RPGLE
> module and created a service program, then registered the UDF using the
> CREATE FUNCTION command in SQL.  Then I use the scalar function to test
> values in a character field of a table.
>
> For example...
>
> SELECT str
> FROM   strTable
> WHERE regexpsrv(str, '\d{3}-\d{4}') = 1
>
> The function gets passed the test value (str), and the regular expression
> pattern (inside the single quotes), and a value of 0 or 1 is returned (1 if
> the test value contains the regular expression pattern, 0 if not).
>
> The problem is, it ALWAYS returns a zero.  My test database has values that
> should sometimes return a zero, but mostly a 1.  Incidentally, the regular
> expression essentially is looking for 3 digits, followed by a dash, followed
> by 4 digits (a phone number of the form xxx-xxxx).
>
> I can put the thing in debug and the expression is compiled and returns a
> zero for the result of the regcomp call.  But the call to regexec just
> always returns a zero, as in 'it doesn't match.  The thing is, I can go to a
> Regular Expression test site
> (http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascriptexample.html), which allows
> me to essentially do the same thing (enter a test value and an expression)
> to test the expression against various values.  It tells me the correct
> results based on the sample data I have.  MY UDF just rejects everything.
>
> If anyone can point me in a direction, or tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'd
> appreciate it very much.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Thomas Garvey
>
> --
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
> or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.