Verbs and Built-in Functions › &ZQUOTE/&ZQUOTE2

&ZQUOTE/&ZQUOTE2

Places quotes around a string and places it into a variable.

&ZQUOTE text ...  text 
&ZQUOTE2 text ...  text

&ZQUOTE provides a means of quoting a string using single or double quotes. &ZQUOTE2 also quotes data, but uses only single quotes. For the rules used, see Notes.

&ZQUOTE and &ZQUOTE2 are built-in functions and must be used to the right of an assignment statement.

Operands:

text

The text to be quoted

Return Codes:

&ZFDBK is set to indicate the success or failure of the quoting procedure:

0

Quote successful

4

The data cannot be quoted. This occurs if the string for quoting is too long to fit within an NCL variable. The input is assigned to the output variable without change.

Examples:

&A=&ZQUOTE ABC DEF  -* results in &A set to “ABC DEF” 
&B=&ZQUOTE say “Hello”  -* &B is set to 'say “Hello”' 
&C=&ZQUOTE say “G'day”  -* &C is set to 'say “G''day”' 
&D=&ZQUOTE2 say “G'day”  -* &D is set to 'say “G”day”'

Notes:

&ZQUOTE and &ZQUOTE2 is used to quote a string which is later analyzed by &SETVARS.

&ZQUOTE quotes the text according to the following rules:

• If the data contains no double quotes (”), a double quote is placed at each end of the text.
• If the data contains no single quotes, a single quote is placed at each end of the text. Otherwise a single quote is placed at each end and every embedded single quote is replaced by two single quotes
• If the data is null, the nominated variable is set to null.

&ZQUOTE2 uses the following rules:

• A single quote is placed at each end of the text and every embedded single quote is replaced by two single quotes
• If the data is null, a null quoted string is returned (that is, '').

More information:

&SETVARS

&ZUNQUOTE