Chapter 10 Generating a Database from a PDM


Formatting variables in customized scripts

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

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 chapter DBMS Reference Guide in the Advanced User Documentation .

 


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