HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

HP OpenVMS DCL Dictionary

Edits the character string based on the edits specified in the edit-list argument.

Format

F$EDIT (string, edit-list)

Return Value

Arguments

string

Specifies a character string to be edited. Quoted sections of the string are not edited.

edit-list

Specifies a character string containing one or more of the following keywords that specify the types of edits to be made to the string:

Edit	Action
COLLAPSE	Removes all spaces or tabs.
COMPRESS	Replaces multiple spaces or tabs with a single space.
LOWERCASE	Changes all uppercase characters to lowercase.
TRIM	Removes leading and trailing spaces or tabs.
UNCOMMENT	Removes comments.
UPCASE	Changes all lowercase characters to uppercase.

If you specify more than one keyword, separate them with commas (,). Do not abbreviate these keywords.

Edits are not applied to quoted sections of strings; therefore, if a string contains quotation marks (" "), the characters within the quotation marks are not affected by the edits specified in the edit list.

Note When UPCASE is specified with LOWERCASE in an edit-list, UPCASE takes precedence.

Examples

$ LINE = "   THIS   LINE   CONTAINS A ""  QUOTED  "" WORD"
$ SHOW SYMBOL LINE
  LINE =  "    THIS    LINE    CONTAINS A "  QUOTED  " WORD"
$ NEW_LINE = F$EDIT(LINE, "COMPRESS, TRIM")
$ SHOW SYMBOL NEW_LINE
  NEW_LINE = "THIS LINE CONTAINS A "  QUOTED  " WORD"
      

This example uses the F$EDIT function to compress and trim a string by replacing multiple blanks with a single blank, and by removing leading and trailing blanks. The string LINE contains quotation marks around the word QUOTED. (To enter quotation marks into a character string, use double quotation marks in the assignment statement.)

Note that the F$EDIT function does not compress the spaces in the quoted section of the string; therefore, the spaces are retained around the word QUOTED.

$ LOOP:
$      READ/END_OF_FILE = DONE INPUT_FILE RECORD
$      RECORD = F$EDIT(RECORD, "TRIM, UPCASE")
$      WRITE OUTPUT_FILE RECORD
$      GOTO LOOP
   .
   .
   .

      

This example sets up a loop to read records from a file, to edit them, and to write them to an output file. The edited records have leading and trailing blanks removed, and are converted to uppercase.

$ UNCOMMENT_LINE = F$EDIT("$ DIR ! THIS IS THE COMMENT", "UNCOMMENT")
$ SHOW SYMBOL UNCOMMENT_LINE
$ UNCOMMENT_LINE = "$ DIR"

      

This example uses the F$EDIT function to remove comments.