Re: trimming non-numerics

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Cozzi wrote:
> Hans,
> Actually I like a combination of yours and mine best.
> Mine allows you to specify a list of extra characters that you want to save
> (such as the decimal notation, minus sign, whatever). But yours, I think,
> would compress out the garbage more efficiently since I do use the
> %SCAN/%REPLACE method in mine.
> Here's the hybrid version of that routine from the article:
>
>      P CleanNum        B                   Export
>
>      D CleanNum        PI           256A   Varying
>      D  szInValue                   256A   Const Varying
>
>      D  szKeepMe                     10A   Const Varying OPTIONS(*NOPASS)
>      
>      D Garbage         S                   Like(szInValue) Inz
>      D CleanVal        S                   Like(szInValue) Inz
>      D CleanDigits     S                   Like(szInValue) Inz
>      D SaveMe          S                   Like(szInValue) Inz
>      D Blanks          S                   Like(szInValue) Inz
>
>      D SAVEVal         C                   Const('0123456789') 
>      D SAVEEx          S             10A   Inz('.-') Varying
>      D i               S             10I 0
>        
>       **  If the caller passed in different symbols,
>       **  use those instead of the default minus and period.
>      C                   if        %Parms >= 2
>      C                   eval      SaveEx = szKeepMe
>      C                   endif
>
>      C                   eval      SaveMe = SaveVal + SaveEx
>                    
>      C                   eval      %len(Blanks) = %len(SaveMe)
>       **  Isolate the digits and anything else the caller specified.
>      C     SaveMe:Blanks XLATE     szInValue     Garbage
>
>      C                   eval      %len(Blanks) = %len(Garbage)
>       **  Translate all of the garbage characters to blanks. 
>      C     Garbage:BlanksXLate     szInValue     CleanVal
>
>       **  Now compress out the blanks from the value.
>      C                   for       i = 1 to %Len(CleanVal)
>      C                   if        %subst(CleanVal:I:1) <> ' '
>      C                   eval      CleanDigits = CleanDigits + 
>      C                                      %subst(CleanVal:I:1) 
>      C                   endif                   
>      C                   endfor                       
>       **  Return the clean number to the caller, as text.
>      C                   return    CleanDigits
>      P CleanNum        E

Hmmm, you're rather fond of XLATE, eh?

With the extra functionality of specifying additional characters to 
filter out, considering the overhead involved with XLATE, I think I'd 
still go with something a bit simpler:

--------------------------------------------------
    ...
    SaveMe = SaveVal + SaveEx;

    // Keep only the specified characters
    for i = 1 to %len(CleanVal);
       ch = %subst(CleanVal:i:1);
       if %scan(ch:SaveMe) > 0:
          CleanDigits += ch;
       endif;
    endfor;

    return CleanDigits;
    ...
--------------------------------------------------

Cheers! Hans