CTRAN: Translating One Character to Another

How to:

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

The CTRAN function translates a character within a character string to another character based on its decimal value. This function is especially useful for changing replacement characters to unavailable characters, or to characters that are difficult to input or unavailable on your keyboard. It can also be used for inputting characters that are difficult to enter when responding to a Dialogue Manager -PROMPT command, such as a comma or apostrophe. It eliminates the need to enclose entries in single quotation marks (').

To use CTRAN, you must know the decimal equivalent of the characters in internal machine representation. Note that the coding chart for conversion is platform dependent, hence your platform and configuration option determines whether ASCII, EBCDIC, or Unicode coding is used. Printable EBCDIC or ASCII characters and their decimal equivalents are listed in .

In Unicode configurations, this function uses values in the range:

Syntax: How to Translate One Character to Another 

CTRAN(length, source_string, decimal, decvalue, output)

where:

length

Integer

Is the number of characters in the source string, or a field that contains the length.

source_string

Alphanumeric

Is the character string to be translated enclosed in single quotation marks ('), or the field or variable that contains the character string.

decimal

Integer

Is the ASCII or EBCDIC decimal value of the character to be translated.

decvalue

Integer

Is the ASCII or EBCDIC decimal value of the character to be used as a substitute for decimal.

output

Alphanumeric

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

Example: Translating Spaces to Underscores on an ASCII Platform

CTRAN translates the spaces in ADDRESS_LN3 (ASCII decimal value 32) to underscores (ASCII decimal value 95), and stores the result in ALT_ADDR: 

TABLE FILE EMPLOYEE
PRINT ADDRESS_LN3 AND COMPUTE
ALT_ADDR/A20 = CTRAN(20, ADDRESS_LN3, 32, 95, ALT_ADDR);
BY EMP_ID
WHERE TYPE EQ 'HSM';
END

The output is: 

EMP_ID     ADDRESS_LN3           ALT_ADDR
------     -----------           --------
117593129  RUTHERFORD NJ 07073   RUTHERFORD_NJ_07073_
119265415  NEW YORK NY 10039     NEW_YORK_NY_10039___
119329144  FREEPORT NY 11520     FREEPORT_NY_11520___
123764317  NEW YORK NY 10001     NEW_YORK_NY_10001___
126724188  FREEPORT NY 11520     FREEPORT_NY_11520___
451123478  ROSELAND NJ 07068     ROSELAND_NJ_07068___
543729165  JERSEY CITY NJ 07300  JERSEY_CITY_NJ_07300
818692173  FLUSHING NY 11354     FLUSHING_NY_11354

Example: Translating Spaces to Underscores on an EBCDIC Platform

CTRAN translates the spaces in ADDRESS_LN3 (EBCDIC decimal value 64) to underscores (EBCDIC decimal value 109) and stores the result in ALT_ADDR: 

TABLE FILE EMPLOYEE
PRINT ADDRESS_LN3 AND COMPUTE
ALT_ADDR/A20 = CTRAN(20, ADDRESS_LN3, 64, 109, ALT_ADDR);
BY EMP_ID
WHERE TYPE EQ 'HSM'
END

The output is:

EMP_ID     ADDRESS_LN3           ALT_ADDR
------     -----------           --------
117593129  RUTHERFORD NJ 07073   RUTHERFORD_NJ_07073_
119265415  NEW YORK NY 10039     NEW_YORK_NY_10039___
119329144  FREEPORT NY 11520     FREEPORT_NY_11520___
123764317  NEW YORK NY 10001     NEW_YORK_NY_10001___
126724188  FREEPORT NY 11520     FREEPORT_NY_11520___
451123478  ROSELAND NJ 07068     ROSELAND_NJ_07068___
543729165  JERSEY CITY NJ 07300  JERSEY_CITY_NJ_07300
818692173  FLUSHING NY 11354     FLUSHING_NY_11354___