%%$SUBSTR

The %%$SUBSTR function extracts a substring from the input string. The valid format is

%%$SUBSTR strng startpos len

In this format

• strng is the input string from which the substring is extracted.
• startpos is the first character of the input string to extract.
• len is the number of characters to extract.

A string is returned composed of the specified number of characters from the input string beginning with the character in the specified starting position.

startpos and len must be numbers (or numeric AutoEdit expressions) and greater than zero.

• If startpos is greater than the string length, an AutoEdit error message is displayed.
• If (startpos + len – 1) is greater than the string length, the returned value is truncated.
• If the length is unknown you can use the values shown in Table 194.

  Table 194 Valid %%$SUBSTR Values — Unknown Length

  Value	Description
  *	Control-O calculates the end of the string.
  '   ' (Blank)	Control-O calculates the end of the string, but at least one valid character must be input after the beginning of the string.

Example

DO SET=%%A = %%$CALCDATE %%$RDATE -1

DO SET=%%AMON = %%$SUBSTR %%A 3 2

On December 1, 2000:

DO SET=%%A = 001130

DO SET=%%AMON = 11