Built-in Functions › STRING-LENGTH

STRING-LENGTH

Purpose

Returns the length of a string value.

Syntax

►►─┬─ STRING-LENGTH ─┬─ ( string ) ───────────────────────────────────────────►◄
   └─ SLENgth ───────┘

Parameters

string

Specifies the string value whose length is determined.

String can be:

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

Example

In the following example, the length of a name contained in EMP-LNAME (PIC X(20)) is determined. To calculate the length of a string value, excluding leading and trailing spaces, the length function is used in conjunction with the extract function, as follows:

Initial value:
    EMP-LNAME: 'SMITH               '
Statement:
    MOVE SLENGTH(EXTRACT(EMP-LNAME)) TO WK-NAME-LENGTH.
Returned string from extract function:
    'SMITH'
Returned value from length function: 5

Note: If EXTRACT is called with an argument consisting only of spaces (x'40's), then it returns a string of one space. If that is passed on to the STRING-LENGTH function, the result will be 1.

Initial value:

EMP-LNAME:'           '

Statement:

MOVE SLENGTH(EXTRACT(EMP-LNAME)) TO WK-NAME-LENGTH.

Returned string from extract function:

' '

Returned value from slength function:

1