Group Extraction. The G correlative extracts one or more fields from a delimited character string.
Format
|
G [skip] delimiter #fields |
Parameter(s)
|
skip |
Specifies the number of fields to skip. If m is not specified, zero is assumed and no fields are skipped. |
|
delimiter |
Field separator. This delimiter can be any single nonnumeric character except a minus sign (–) or a system delimiter (SM, AM, VM, SVM, or SB). |
|
#fields |
A decimal number indicating the number of contiguous delimited fields to extract. If n = 0, a null value is returned. |
Using the G Correlative
Attribute 2 in a personnel database contains a department ID and a job ID separated by a slash (/). The stored data has the format:
|
30/110 |
This Attribute Synonym Definition item could be used to extract just the department ID:
|
DEPT 001 S 002 2 003 Department 004 005 006 007 008 G / 1 009 L 010 3 |
The G correlative in the example extracts only one field, the first one. Alternatively, the correlative G1/1 would skip the first field and extract only the second one.
The G correlative can also be used to extract data elements that are separated by blanks. For instance, if an attribute contains a person’s first and last names, you can extract either the first or the last name with the G correlative.
The examples listed in the table below illustrate how the G correlative works. The stored data for all these examples is 10/20/30/40:
|
If the G Correlative is… |
Then Data Extracted is… |
|
G/1 |
10 |
|
G/2 |
10/20 |
|
G1/1 |
20 |
|
G1/2 |
20/30 |
|
G2/1 |
30 |
|
G4/1 |
<null> |
See Also