C Correlative

The C correlative is used to concatenate attributes or literals, or both.

Format

C expression1 C expression2 [C expression3…]

Parameter(s)

C	A character that separates concatenated elements. Any nonnumeric character except a semicolon is a valid separator, including a blank. A semicolon (;) indicates that no separator is to be used.
expression	Specifies each element to be concatenated. An expression can be either an attribute number; any literal string enclosed in single or double quotes (' or ") or backslashes (\); or an asterisk (*). An asterisk specifies the result generated by a previous conversion or correlative operation.

Description

Attributes in expressions can be specified only by attribute number; they cannot be specified by name.

Any number of expressions and separation characters can be included in any order.

When the Attribute Definition item of the attribute containing the C correlative is set up in the file dictionary, the attribute number (line 2) should be zero. If any other attribute number is used and the attribute specified contains a null value, the concatenation is not performed.

Using the C Correlative

In the table below, attribute 1 refers to a person’s first name and Attribute 2 refers to the last name. This correlative provides the person’s full name with last name first and first name last:

Code	Result
C2,1	MORRIS,STEVEN

A comma is used as the separation character.

In the table below, a C correlative is used to build a part number from the three pieces of data contained in attributes 3, 2, and 4:

Code	Result
C"AZ"3-2-4	AZ250-35-1002

The table below shows more examples of how the C correlative can be used. The item referenced contains the data:

001 KANE

002 MIKE

003 514

004 MANAGER

005 COMMUNICATIONS

006 N/L

007 N/B

008 M3270

0 indicates a space character.

Code	Result
C1 , 2	KANE,MIKE
C1 ; ' ,à ' ; 2	KANE,MIKE
C " EXTà " ; 3	EXT 514
C1 ; \ , " \ ; 4 ; ' OF ' ; 5 "	KANE, "MANAGER OF COMMUNICATIONS"