T Code - Text Extraction

The T code extracts a character substring from an attribute value.

Input Conversion

Input conversion does not invert. It simply applies the text extraction to the input data.

Syntax

T{start,}count

Syntax Elements

start Is the starting column number. When start is specified, the code counts and extracts characters from left to right only: the contents of attribute 9 of the data definition item has no effect.

count Is the number of characters to be extracted.

If start is specified, the code extracts count characters, left to right, starting at character start.

If start is not specified, the code extracts count characters either from the left or the right end of the element, depending on the contents of attribute 9 of the data definition item. If attribute 9 contains R (right-align), the code extracts the last count characters from the element. If attribute 9 does not contain R, the code extracts the first n characters from the element.

Comments

The T code is particularly useful for retrieving information from a file with fixed length attribute values. To save space, many applications concatenate various elements, such as address fields, into one string. The T code can then be used to extract elements such as city, ZIP code, and so on.

Examples

Code	Alignment	Stored Value	Result
T3,2	Left	ABCDEFG	CD
T3,2	Right	ABCDEFG	CD
T5	Right	CA90071	90071
T2	Left	CA90071	CA
T3,5	Left	CA90071	90071