IF Command—Assign Identifier Values

The IF command lets you assign new values to identifiers or create new identifiers based on existing identifiers.

This command has the following syntax:

IF idoption1=(identifier[,identifier,identifier...])
THEN idoption2=newvalue [ELSE idoption3=newvalue]

idoption1: Specifies the ID option whose value is being tested.
identifier: Specifies an ID option or one or more identifiers to compare to idoption1.
idoption2: Specifies the ID option whose identifiers are assigned a new value when the IF clause is true. This value can be the same as idoption1.
newvalue: Defines the new value to assign to the identifier. Replace newvalue with either an ID option or a character string. If you specify a character string, enclose it in single quotes.
idoption3: Specifies the ID option whose identifiers are assigned a new value when the IF clause is false. This value can be the same as idoption2.

Examples: IF Command

The following command replaces the value of TERMID with the value of TRANID whenever the value of TERMID is equal to L*:

IF TERMID=(L*) THEN TERMID=TRANID

The following command replaces the value of TRANID with the character string production whenever the value of TRANID begins with P:

IF TRANID=(P*) THEN TRANID='production' ELSE TRANID='test'

The following command creates the ID option DEPARTMENT. Whenever the value of TRANID begins with P, DEPARTMENT is assigned the value production.

IF TRANID=(P*) THEN DEPARTMENT='production'