STRING MERGE

STRING MERGE

Let Subcommand

Insert the contents of one string into another string at a specified position.

This command is used to insert the contents of one string into an arbitrary position of another string. For example, if the original string is
FILE.DAT

and the insertion string is

99

and the merge position is given as 5, then the resulting merged string would be

FILE99.DAT

Note that if the the merge position is 5, then the insertion string starts at position 5 (i.e., the position parameter is the before position rather than the after position).

The STRING REPLACE command performs a similar function. However, the original string is not shifted. In the above example, the resulting string from the STRING REPLACE command would be

FILE99AT

The STRING EDIT command can be used to perform more general edits of a string.

LET <sout> = STRING MERGE <sorg> <snew> <nstart>
where <sout> is the name of the resulting string;
            <sorg> is the name of the original string;
            <snew> is the name of the insertion string;
and <nstart> is the merge position.

LET SOUT = STRING MERGE S1 SNEW NSTART

The name of the new string can be the same as the original string. For example,
LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW NSTART

Both strings on the right hand side of the equal sign must be previously existing strings. That is, expressions are not allowed. For example, instead of
LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME ".dat" NSTART

you need to do

LET STRING SNEW = .dat
LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW NSTART


The starting position can be either a parameter or a numeric value. However, it cannot be a numeric expression. So

LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW NSTART
LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW 5


are both allowed but

LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW NLEN/2

is not allowed. You would need to enter this as

LET NSTART = NLEN/2
LET FNAME = STRING MERGE FNAME SNEW NSTART

The total number of characters that DATAPLOT can use for storing functions and strings is set when DATAPLOT is built. The current default (11/2008) is 50,000 characters. Previous versions may set this limit at 1,000 or 10,000 characters. This limit applies to the combined number of characters for all functions and strings.

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 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 REPLACE	= Insert a string into another string with overwrite.
STRING LENGTH	= Return the length of a string.
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

11/2008

 
LET STRING S1 = file.dat
LET STRING S2 = 23
LET NPOS = 5
LET SOUT = STRING MERGE S1 S2 NPOS
    

The resulting string SOUT will contain
file23.txt

 
.  Assume we have variables X and Y in the files "file1.dat" to
.  "file10.dat" and we want to plot each of these in turn.
.
LET STRING SOLD = file.dat
LET NPOS = 5
TITLE CASE ASIS
LOOP FOR K = 1 1 10
    LET STRING S2 = ^K
    LET FNAME = STRING MERGE SOLD S2 NPOS
    READ ^FNAME  Y X
    TITLE Data from File ^SOUT
    PLOT Y X
    DELETE Y X
END OF LOOP