Blank Spaces

[marinos]

Dear all,
i have small problem in progress 10.1b. Does anybody know how can i eliminate spaces or leading zero. For example:
i have a field with format char"x(10)". but the value is less than 10. How i avoid the spaces at the end, also the same for integer values e.g. ">>>>>9.99".

Thanks
Marinos

 

[MadMichael]

For character fields, use the TRIM, LEFT-TRIM, and RIGHT-TRIM functions to remove leading and trailing spaces.

I'm not sure what you mean by your numeric format example. The '>' is used in floating currency symbol formats, after a currency symbol, or in floating decimal formats. The numeric format symbol 'z' is used to suppress leading zeros.

 

[marinos]

Thanks,
but the trim function is not working for my program.
What i actually want is to erase any blank spaces in my output file.

Thanks again for help.

Marinos

 

[MadMichael]

You need to build a loop that examines each individual character in the field and cuts out spaces using the SUBSTRING function. Something like:

DEF VAR v-char-index as integer.
DEF VAR v-sample-field AS CHARACTER FORMAT "x(11)" INITIAL " 1234 5678 ".
v-sample-field = TRIM(v-sample-field). /* remove leading and trailing spaces */
REPEAT v-char-index = 2 to LENGTH(v-sample-field).  /* remove internal spaces */
  IF SUBSTRING(v-sample-field,v-char-index,1) = " "
  THEN v-sample-field = SUBSTRING(v-sample-field,1,v-char-index - 1) + SUBSTRING(v-sample-field,v-char-index + 1).
END.
DISPLAY v-sample-field LENGTH(v-sample-field).

 

[MadMichael]

On further reflection, the loop will not handle multiple contiguous spaces unless the field is processed right-to-left. The REPEAT statement should be:

REPEAT v-char-index = LENGTH(v-sample-field) to 2 by -1.

 

[marinos]

Thanks it was very helpful.

Regards
Marinos