Formatting Variables in Customized Scripts

Variables have a syntax that can force a format on their values. Typical uses are as follows:

Force values to lowercase or uppercase characters
Truncate the length of values
Enquote text

You embed formatting options in variable syntax as follows:

%[[?][-][width][.[-]precision][c][H][F][U|L][T][M][q][Q]:]<varname>%

The variable formatting options are the following:

Format option	Description
?	Mandatory field, if a null value is returned the translate call fails
`n` (where n is an integer)	Blanks or zeros added to the left to fill the width and justify the output to the right
-`n`	Blanks or zeros added to the right to fill the width and justify the output to the left
width	Copies the specified minimum number of characters to the output buffer
.[-]precision	Copies the specified maximum number of characters to the output buffer
.L	Lower-case characters
.U	Upper-case characters
.F	Combined with L and U, applies conversion to first character
.T	Leading and trailing white space trimmed from the variable
.H	Converts number to hexadecimal
.c	Upper-case first letter and lower-case next letters
.`n`	Truncates to `n` first characters
.-`n`	Truncates to `n` last characters
M	Extracts a portion of the variable name, this option uses the width and precision parameters to identify the portion to extract
q	Enquotes the variable (single quotes)
Q	Enquotes the variable (double quotes)

For more examples on variable formatting, see section Defining variable formatting options in the DBMS Resource File Reference chapter in the Customizing and Extending PowerDesigner manual.