Built-in Functions › CONCATENATE

CONCATENATE

Purpose

Returns the concatenation of a specified list of string values.

Syntax

                         ┌─── , ────┐
►►─┬─ CONCATENATE ─┬─ ( ─▼─ string ─┴─ ) ─────────────────────────────────────►◄
   ├─ CONCAT ──────┤
   └─ CON ─────────┘

Parameters

string

Specifies one or more string values that are concatenated to form a single string value.

String can be:

• A string literal, enclosed in single quotation marks
• The name of a user-defined variable data field containing the string

Example 1: Using the concatenate function only

In the following example, the concatenate function is used to concatenate EMP-FNAME (PIC X(15)) and EMP-LNAME (PIC X(15)) so that the first name precedes the last name:

Initial values:
    EMP-FNAME: 'JOE            '
    EMP-LNAME: 'SMITH          '
Statement:
    MOVE CONCATENATE(EMP-FNAME,EMP-LNAME) TO WK-NAME.
Returned string:
    'JOE            SMITH          '

Example 2: Using the concatenate function with the extract function

In this example, the concatenate function is used in conjunction with the extract function to concatenate EMP-FNAME (PIC X(15)), up to but not including the first blank, with a blank and then with EMP-LNAME (PIC X(15)):

Initial values:
    EMP-FNAME: 'JOE            '
    EMP-LNAME: 'SMITH          '
Statements:
    MOVE CON(EXTRACT(EMP-FNAME),' ',EMP-LNAME) TO WK-NAME.
Returned string:
    'JOE SMITH          '

Another example of the concatenate function is provided in SUBSTRING.