BYTVAL: Translating a Character to Decimal

Syntax: How to Translate a Character

BYTVAL(character, output)

where:

character

Alphanumeric

Is the character to be translated. You can specify a field or variable that contains the character, or the character itself enclosed in single quotation marks. If you supply more than one character, the function evaluates the first.

output

Integer

Is the name of the field that contains the corresponding decimal value, or the format of the output value enclosed in single quotation marks.

Example: Translating the First Character of a Field

BYTVAL translates the first character of LAST_NAME into its ASCII or EBCDIC decimal value and stores the result in LAST_INIT_CODE. Since the input string has more than one character, BYTVAL evaluates the first one.

TABLE FILE EMPLOYEE
PRINT LAST_NAME AND
COMPUTE LAST_INIT_CODE/I3 = BYTVAL(LAST_NAME, 'I3');
WHERE DEPARTMENT EQ 'MIS';
END

The output on an ASCII platform is:

LAST_NAME  LAST_INIT_CODE
---------  --------------
SMITH                  83
JONES                  74
MCCOY                  77
BLACKWOOD              66
GREENSPAN              71
CROSS                  67

The output on an EBCDIC platform is:

LAST_NAME  LAST_INIT_CODE
---------  --------------
SMITH                 226
JONES                 209
MCCOY                 212
BLACKWOOD             194
GREENSPAN             199
CROSS                 195

Example: Returning the EBCDIC Value With Dialogue Manager

This Dialogue Manager request prompts for a character, then returns the corresponding number. The following reflects the results on the Windows platform.

-SET &CODE = BYTVAL(&CHAR, 'I3');
-HTMLFORM BEGIN
<HTML>
<BODY>
THE EQUIVALENT VALUE IS &CODE
</BODY>
</HTML>
-HTMLFORM END

Assume the value entered for &CHAR is an exclamation point (!). The output is:

THE EQUIVALENT VALUE IS 33