STRING COMPARE

STRING COMPARE

Let Subcommand

Compare two strings and return a 1 if they are identical and return a 0 if they are not.

LET <ival> = STRING COMPARE <s1> <s2>
where <ival> is a parameter containing a 1 if the strings are identical and 0 if they are not;
            <s1> is the name of the first string;
and     <s2> is the name of the second string.

With this syntax, the comparison is case sensitive and the full strings are compared (if the strings are of unequal length a 0 will be returned even if the strings match up to length of the shorter string).

LET <ival> = STRING COMPARE NOCASE <s1> <s2>
where <ival> is a parameter containing a 1 if the strings are identical and 0 if they are not;
            <s1> is the name of the first string;
and     <s2> is the name of the second string.

With this syntax, the comparison is not case sensitive and the full strings are compared (if the strings are of unequal length a 0 will be returned even if the strings match up to length of the shorter string).

LET <ival> = STRING COMPARE <s1> <s2> <len>
where <ival> is a parameter containing a 1 if the strings are identical and 0 if they are not;
            <s1> is the name of the first string;
            <s2> is the name of the second string;
and     <len> is a number or a parameter that specifies the number of characters in the strings to compare.

With this syntax, the comparison is case sensitive, but only the first <len> characters in <s1> and <s2> are compared.

LET <ival> = STRING COMPARE NOCASE <s1> <s2> <len>
where <ival> is a parameter containing a 1 if the strings are identical and 0 if they are not;
            <s1> is the name of the first string;
            <s2> is the name of the second string;
and     <len> is a number or a parameter that specifies the number of characters in the strings to compare.

With this syntax, the comparison is not case sensitive, but only the first <len> characters in <s1> and <s2> are compared.

LET IVAL = STRING COMPARE S1 S2
LET IVAL = STRING COMPARE NOCASE S1 S2
LET IVAL = STRING COMPARE S1 S2 NCHAR
LET IVAL = STRING COMPARE NOCASE S1 S2 NCHAR

None

None

UPPER CASE	= Convert a string to upper case.
LOWER CASE	= Convert a string to lower case.
LET FUNCTION	= Defines a function.
LET STRING	= Defines a string.
READ STRING	= Reads a string from a file.
SUBSTITUTE CHARACTER (^)	= Substitute the value of a string or parameter.
CONCATENATE CHARACTER (&)	= Concatenate two strings.
SUBTRING	= Extract a substring from an existing string.
STRING LENGTH	= Return the length of a string.
STRING INDEX	= Extract the start/stop positions of a substring within a string.
STRING CONCATENATE	= Concatenate one or more previously defined strings.
STRING EDIT	= Edit a string.
STRING MERGE	= Insert a string into another string without overwrite.
STRING REPLACE	= Insert a string into another string with overwrite.
CHARACTER	= Convert numeric values to strings based on the ASCII collating sequence.
ICHAR	= Convert a string to numeric values based on the ASCII collating sequence.
GROUP LABEL	= Define the text for group labels.

Data Management

2011/01
2021/08: Support for NOCASE option
2021/08: Support for limiting the comparison to a specified number of characters at the start of the strings

 
LET STRING S1 = file23.dat
LET STRING S2 = file13.dat
LET STRING S3 = file23.dat
LET IVAL1 = STRING COMPARE S1 S2
LET IVAL2 = STRING COMPARE S1 S3
    

The resulting values of IVAL1 and IVAL2 are 0 and 1, respectively.