Category: Functions

Tests if a character string contains only letters and digits. Syntax $isalphanumeric(string) Parameters string a character string or an expression that evaluates to a character string Return Value 1-character binary string. Evaluates to 1 ($True) if string meets the validation test; otherwise, evaluates to 0 ($False). Comments This function tests if a particular character string…
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Left-justifies a character string. Syntax $leftjustify(string) Parameters string a character string or an expression that evaluates to a character string Return Value Character string. Comments String is left-justified in a space that is $length(string) characters long. Leading spaces in string are ignored. Example $leftjustify(” abcde”) Evaluates to “abcde “. $leftjustify(var1) Evaluates to “3 ” if…
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Returns the absolute value of a number. Syntax $absolute(number) where number a number, or an expression that evaluates to a number Return Value Number, positive, with the same number of decimal places as number. Comments Use $absolute to ensure that a number is positive (for functions such as $sqrt, for example). $absolute returns the absolute…
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Converts alphabetic characters to lower case. Syntax $tolower(source) Parameters source any value, or an expression that yields any value Return Value Character string. Comments Returns a character string in which all letters are lower case. If source is not of a character data type, it is converted to a character data type before the function…
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Determines the month name associated with a specified date value. Syntax $monthname(date) Parameters date a data, or an expression that evaluates to a date, in the form YYYYMMDD Return Value Character string. Comments This function extracts month information from standard date values. Date is often the system variable $Date. The values returned by the $monthname…
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Tests if a character string is a valid date. Syntax $isdate(string) Parameters string a character string or an expression that evaluates to a character string Return Value 1-character binary string. Evaluates to 1 ($True) if string meets the validation test; otherwise, evaluates to 0 ($False). Comments This function tests if a particular character string is…
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Calculates the sine of a number. Syntax $sin(number) Parameters number a number, or an expression that evaluates to a number Return Value Number, with the same number of decimal places as number. Comments The value returned by this function has the same number of decimal places as number. Ensure that you specify enough decimal places…
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Right-justifies a character string. Syntax $rightjustify(string) Parameters string a character string, or an expression that evaluates to a character string Return Value Character string, consisting of string right-justified in a space $length(string) characters long. Trailing blanks in string are ignored. Example $rightjustify(“abcde “) Evaluates to ” abcde”. $rightjustify(var1) Evaluates to ” 3″ if var1 is…
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Sums a set of values, excluding those in which the expression is $Null. Syntax $total(expression) Parameters expression any expression Return Value Number. Comments Expression is often a WHERE expression that includes only selected values in the totalling operation. If the WHERE expression (expr1 WHERE expr2) is true, the expr1 value is included in the operation;…
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Calculates the hyperbolic cosine of a number. Syntax $cosh(number) Parameters number a number, or an expression that evaluates to a number, representing an angle (in radians) Return Value Number, with the same number of decimal places as number. Ensure that you specify enough decimal places in your equation to ensure a sufficiently granular result. Unusual…
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