trim trailing characters

lfong · Post by **lfong** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:07 pm

I am trying to trim all trailing characters after a '(' eg. abcdef (xxxx) would become abcdef
The trim function will not work because the trailing or leading function will only remove the '('.

What would be the best way to do this?

Thanks

DSguru2B · Post by **DSguru2B** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:10 pm

Forget the trim function. Use the Field() function to extract everything before "(".

Code: Select all

Field(in.Col, "(", 1)

kumar_s · Post by **kumar_s** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:38 pm

Trim can eliminate whitespace or tabs or spaces or any given character not any character that are available. DSguru2B suggestion should be more simple to your requirement.

DSguru2B · Post by **DSguru2B** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:44 am

Simple ,yes ; efficient, I dont know about that. I belive, using INDEX() to get the position of "(" and use it in substring ([1,x]) where x will be the position returned by INDEX().

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:49 am

Which is exactly how Field() works.

DSguru2B · Post by **DSguru2B** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:00 am

ray.wurlod wrote:Which is exactly how Field() works.

Hmm, did'nt know that. But makes sense. So it is safe to say that Field() is equivalent to INDEX() with substring, in efficiency?

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:55 pm

Probably. Write it yourself in C, just to prove the point.

DSguru2B · Post by **DSguru2B** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:02 pm

ray.wurlod wrote:Probably. Write it yourself in C, just to prove the point.

Nah. Even if there is a difference, it must be negligible.