SIMSCRIPT II.5 Programming Language

SIMSCRIPT II.5 Programming Language
2.21.8 Blank Character Elimination: TRIM.F(string, flag)
This function trims leading and/or trailing blanks from text string, according to the value of flag
(an integer variable). Thus:
Flag
Action
-1 Remove leading blanks only
0 Remove leading and trailing blanks
+1 Remove trailing blanks only
Thus, for example:
trim.f (" CAT ", 1)yields the string " CAT"
trim.f (" DOG ", -1)yields the string "DOG "
trim.f (" CAT AND DOG ",0)yields the string "CAT AND DOG"
2.21.9 INTEGER to TEXT Conversion ITOT.F(integer)
This function returns a text string representation of its single integer argument. The length of the
returned string is determined by the number of digits required to represent the integer value. Strings
representing negative integers are prefixed with a "-". Thus, for example, if INT = 26 and TVAR
is a text variable:
let TVAR = itot.f(INT)
assigns "26" to TVAR.
2.22 Alpha Variables
As text variables may not be used in arithmetic expressions, SIMSCRIPT II.5 provides for an
alpha mode. An example of such a requirement might be the indexing of an array using a character
subscript. An alpha variable provides for the representation of alphanumeric data which may be
manipulated in a way similar to numeric data.
Earlier implementations of SIMSCRIPT did not support a text mode, and hence did all character
processing in alpha mode. The number of characters represented by each alpha variable was
machine dependent. Although this interpretation of the alpha mode may still be supported for
compatibility reasons, alpha variables should now be assumed to be restricted to a single character.
Usage that requires multiple-character representation is provided by the text mode, and it is recommended
that text mode be used for character processing where possible. Variables are defined
to be alpha in the usual ways:
or
normally, mode is alpha
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