Working With String Data in Recital

Working With String Data in Recital

Changing the Case of a String

See Also

Table of Contents

• strtolower() - convert a string to lower case
• strtoupper() - convert a string to upper case
• ucfirst() - convert a string to lower case with the first character of each word in upper case

Printing Formatted Strings in Recital

Recital provides three functions for the output of strings with 'C' style parameter replacement and formatting.

The printf() function outputs the string to the current output: screen, printer destination, alternate file.

PRINTF(format as character, args [,...])

The sprintf() function returns the formatted string as a character value.

character=PRINTF(format as character, args [,...])

The fprintf() function writes the formatted string to an open file using a file pointer reference.

FPRINTF(file pointer as numeric, format as character, args [,...])

Recital printf Formatting Specifiers

Formatting option	Description
%s	Convert to character string (similar to using ETOS() or TOSTRING()
%d	For date parameters
%f	For floating point numeric parameters
%y	For currency parameters
%t	For datetime parameters
%T	For datetime parameters; character day is also displayed
%l	For logical parameters: True, False
%L	For logical parameters: Yes, No

Formatting sequences can also contain the following options. These are specified in order, between the '%' and the data type letter.

Formatting option	Description
-	Left-justify
n	Left pad with spaces to width n
n.p	Left pad with spaces to width n and include the decimal point and p decimal places (%f only)

Example code

// When %s is specified, the corresponding argument is converted to 
// character format (similar to specifying etos()).
// Widths correspond to the default values, e.g. numerics are 10
printf('It is %s, %s to be more precise\n',year(date()),datetime())
printf('The value of pi is %s\n',pi())
printf('They cost %s per %s\n',$99,100)
printf('Logicals can be %s or %s\n',.T.,.F.)
// Formatting sequences can contain a width, which will left pad with spaces 
printf('Right-justify and pad left: %10s this\n','Like')
// Left justify by placing a '-' directly following the '%' character 
printf('Left-justify and pad right: %-10s this\n','Like')
// %d is for numerics
printf('It is %d\n',year(date()))
// %t and %T are for formating datetime data types.
printf('It is %d, %t to be more precise\n',year(date()),datetime())
printf('It is %d, %T to be even more precise\n',year(date()),datetime())
// %f is for floating point numerics
printf('The value of pi is %f\n',pi())
// Decimal places can also be specified for floating point numerics (%f) 
printf('The value of pi to two decimal places is %4.2f\n',pi())
// %y is for formatting currency data types
printf('They cost %y per %d\n',$99,100)
printf('They cost %y per %d\n',$99,1000)
printf('They cost %y per %d\n',$99,10000)
//%l and %L are for formatting logical datatypes.
printf('Logicals can be %l or %l\n',.T.,.F.)
printf('Logicals can also be %L or %L\n',.T.,.F.)

Output

It is       2009, 11/11/2009 11:41:51 AM to be more precise
The value of pi is  3.1415926
They cost $99.0000 per        100
Logicals can be True or False
Right-justify and pad left:       Like this
Left-justify and pad right: Like       this
It is 2009
It is 2009, 11/11/2009 11:41:51 AM to be more precise
It is 2009, Wednesday November 11 2009 11:41:51 to be even more precise
The value of pi is 3.141593
The value of pi to two decimal places is 3.14
They cost $99.0000 per 100
They cost $99.0000 per 1000
They cost $99.0000 per 10000
Logicals can be True or False
Logicals can also be Yes or No

Finding the Length of a Recital String

See Also

Table of Contents

• strlen() - return the numeric length of a string

String Conversion Functions

See Also

Table of Contents

• ctod() - perform character to date conversion
• dtoc() - perform date to character conversion
• dtos() - perform date to string conversion
• etos() - perform expression to string conversion
• stod() - perform string to date conversion
• val() - perform string to numeric conversion