How do I count through a text field one character at a time? I've looked at reference modification and things like that, but nothing seems to work so far. I need to be able to store the position of specific characters and count them one at a time so that I know which characters to overwrite. Example of the problem: finding credit card numbers in a text field. Must replace these numbers (unformatted: could be 16 digits together or with delimiters such as dashes, etc) with zeros. Suggestions? Examples?
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Cobol parsing
- Thread starter rubby
- Start date
What I would do is setup a counter field to then check each position one by one. For example:
MOVE 1 TO START-POS.
MOVE 1 TO NEW-POINTER.
PERFORM UNTIL START-POS >= 16
IF TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) >= 0
AND TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) <= 9
STRING TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) DELIMITED BY SIZE
INTO NEW-TEXT-FIELD
WITH POINTER NEW-POINTER
END-STRING
END-IF
ADD 1 TO START-POS
END-PERFORM.
This will then read your original field (TEXT-FIELD), strip out any characters other than the numbers 0-9, and place this new value into a new field (NEW-TEXT-FIELD).
Hope this helps!
MOVE 1 TO START-POS.
MOVE 1 TO NEW-POINTER.
PERFORM UNTIL START-POS >= 16
IF TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) >= 0
AND TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) <= 9
STRING TEXT-FIELD (START-POS:1) DELIMITED BY SIZE
INTO NEW-TEXT-FIELD
WITH POINTER NEW-POINTER
END-STRING
END-IF
ADD 1 TO START-POS
END-PERFORM.
This will then read your original field (TEXT-FIELD), strip out any characters other than the numbers 0-9, and place this new value into a new field (NEW-TEXT-FIELD).
Hope this helps!
Guest
Hi rubby,
Not sure I understand.
Do you want to zero out a cc#?
You said "Must replace these numbers ... with zeros".
Do you have a large field w/multiple cc#s in it?
Or do you want to find the #s of a cc#, but ignore the dashes, etc.
You said "...finding credit card numbers in a text field".
How many types of delimiters do you have?
You said "delimiters such as dashes, etc".
Maybe showing us some real data and talking from that might help.
Regards, Jack.
If they can be anything, you may have a problem.
Not sure I understand.
Do you want to zero out a cc#?
You said "Must replace these numbers ... with zeros".
Do you have a large field w/multiple cc#s in it?
Or do you want to find the #s of a cc#, but ignore the dashes, etc.
You said "...finding credit card numbers in a text field".
How many types of delimiters do you have?
You said "delimiters such as dashes, etc".
Maybe showing us some real data and talking from that might help.
Regards, Jack.
If they can be anything, you may have a problem.
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