STRAN: Substituting One Substring for Another

How to:

The STRAN function substitutes a substring for another substring in a character string. STRAN enables you to edit part of a character string without replacing the field entirely.

To use this function, import the function library MNTUWS. For more information on importing this library see Calling a Function.

Syntax: How to Substitute a Substring 

STRAN(string, substr1, substr2)

where:

string

Alphanumeric

Is the character string into which you want to substitute one substring for another, or a temporary field that contains the string.

substr1

Alphanumeric

Is the substring to replace.

substr2

Alphanumeric

Is the substring to insert in place of substr1.

Example: Substituting One String for Another

STRAN replaces the word DOOR with the word Seater in the MODEL field: 

MAINTAIN FILE CAR
MODULE IMPORT (MNTUWS);
FOR ALL NEXT COUNTRY CAR MODEL INTO XSTK
  WHERE MODEL CONTAINS 'DOOR'
COMPUTE XSTK.NEWMOD/A24;
COMPUTE I/I2=1;
REPEAT XSTK.FOCCOUNT
  COMPUTE XSTK(I).NEWMOD=STRAN(XSTK(I).MODEL,'DOOR','SEATER');
  TYPE "<<XSTK(I).CAR  <<XSTK(I).MODEL  <<XSTK(I).NEWMOD"
  COMPUTE I=I+1;
ENDREPEAT
END

The following are sample values for MODEL and values for the result of the STRAN function: 

CAR              MODEL                    STRAN
---              -----                    -----  
PEUGEOT          504 4 DOOR               504 4 SEATER
ALFA ROMEO       2000 4 DOOR BERLINA      2000 4 SEATER BERLINA
MASERATI         DORA 2 DOOR              DORA 2 SEATER
DATSUN           B210 2 DOOR AUTO         B210 2 SEATER AUTO
TOYOTA           COROLLA 4 DOOR DIX AUTO  COROLLA 4 SEATER DIX AUT
AUDI             100 LS 2 DOOR AUTO       100 LS 2 SEATER AUTO
BMW              2002 2 DOOR              2002 2 SEATER
BMW              2002 2 DOOR AUTO         2002 2 SEATER AUTO
BMW              3.0 SI 4 DOOR            3.0 SI 4 SEATER
BMW              3.0 SI 4 DOOR AUTO       3.0 SI 4 SEATER AUTO
BMW              530I 4 DOOR              530I 4 SEATER
BMW              530I 4 DOOR AUTO         530I 4 SEATER AUTO