UPCASE: Converting Text to Uppercase

How to:

Available Languages: reporting

The UPCASE function converts a character string to uppercase. It is useful for sorting on a field that contains both mixed-case and uppercase values. Sorting on a mixed-case field produces incorrect results because the sorting sequence in EBCDIC always places lowercase letters before uppercase letters, while the ASCII sorting sequence always places uppercase letters before lowercase. To obtain correct results, define a new field with all of the values in uppercase, and sort on that field.

There is a version of the UPCASE function that is available only in the Maintain language. For information on this function, see UPCASE: Converting Text to Uppercase (Maintain).

Syntax: How to Convert Text to Uppercase 

UPCASE(length, source_string, output)

where:

length

Integer

Is the number of characters in source_string and output.

input

Alphanumeric

Is the string to convert enclosed in single quotation marks, or the field containing the character string.

output

Alphanumeric of type AnV or An

Is the field to which the result is returned, or the format of the output value enclosed in single quotation marks.

Example: Converting a Mixed-Case String to Uppercase

UPCASE converts the LAST_NAME_MIXED field to uppercase: 

DEFINE FILE EMPLOYEE
LAST_NAME_MIXED/A15=IF DEPARTMENT EQ 'MIS' THEN LAST_NAME ELSE 
  LCWORD(15, LAST_NAME, 'A15');
LAST_NAME_UPPER/A15=UPCASE(15, LAST_NAME_MIXED, 'A15') ;
END
TABLE FILE EMPLOYEE
PRINT LAST_NAME_MIXED AND FIRST_NAME BY LAST_NAME_UPPER
WHERE CURR_JOBCODE EQ 'B02' OR 'A17' OR 'B04';
END

Now, when you execute the request, the names are sorted correctly.

The output is: 

LAST_NAME_UPPER  LAST_NAME_MIXED  FIRST_NAME
---------------  ---------------  ----------
BANNING          Banning          JOHN
BLACKWOOD        BLACKWOOD        ROSEMARIE
CROSS            CROSS            BARBARA
MCCOY            MCCOY            JOHN
MCKNIGHT         Mcknight         ROGER
ROMANS           Romans           ANTHONY

If you do not want to see the field with all uppercase values, you can NOPRINT it.