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Text Statements

Note

While this section is up-to-date and complete, it has to be reformated to be easier on the eyes. All UPPERCASE statement names and code should be changed to lowercase.

IN _ JOIN _

The IN JOIN statement concatenates two or more values and stores them in a TEXT variable. If any of those values is a number, it is converted to a string before concatenation.

Syntax:

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IN <TEXT-VAR> JOIN <multiple NUMBER, TEXT, TEXT-VAR, NUMBER-VAR or CRLF>

Example:

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IN myTextVariable JOIN "Hello World!" " " "Welcome to LDPL!" crlf

will store

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"Hello World! Welcome to LDPL!\n"

in myTextVariable.

REPLACE _ WITH _ FROM _ IN _

The REPLACE statement finds and replaces every occurrence of some TEXT in a TEXT variable or value some other TEXT. The result is then stored in a TEXT variable.

Syntax:

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REPLACE <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> WITH <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> FROM <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> IN <TEXT-VAR>

Example:

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REPLACE "COBOL" FROM "COBOL is great!" WITH "LDPL" IN sentiment
DISPLAY sentiment crlf

Outputs:

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LDPL is great!

SPLIT _ BY _ IN _

The SPLIT statement breaks up a single TEXT variable into multiple parts based on another TEXT variable and puts those parts into sub-indexes of a TEXT LIST, starting at the NUMBER 0 and incrementing by whole numbers. This allows you to break up a text sentence into multiple parts by splitting on spaces, for example. Or to split a file into lines by splitting on "\n"

To break TEXT into individual characters, split by the empty string of "".

Syntax:

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SPLIT <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> BY <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> IN <TEXT-LIST>

Example:

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DATA:
    parts IS TEXT LIST
PROCEDURE:
    SPLIT "Hello there!" BY " " IN parts
    display parts:0 crlf parts:1 crlf

will output:

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Hello
there!

Split into characters:

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DATA:
    parts IS TEXT LIST
PROCEDURE:
    SPLIT "onomatopoeia" BY "" IN parts
    DISPLAY parts:3 " is M " crlf

will output:

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m is M

GET CHARACTER AT _ FROM _ IN _

The GET CHARACTER AT statement gets the character at the position indicated by the NUMBER value from the TEXT value and stores it in a TEXT variable.

Syntax:

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GET CHARACTER AT <NUMBER-VAR or NUMBER> FROM <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> IN <TEXT-VAR>

GET LENGTH OF _ IN _

The GET LENGTH OF statement counts the number of characters in the passed TEXT and stores that number in the NUMBER variable.

Syntax:

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GET LENGTH OF <TEXT-VAR or TEXT> IN <NUMBER-VAR>

GET ASCII CHARACTER _ IN _

The GET ASCII CHARACTER statement stores the character with the ASCII code passed in NUMBER or NUMBER-VAR in TEXT-VAR.

Syntax:

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GET ASCII CHARACTER <NUMBER or NUMBER-VAR> IN <TEXT-VAR>

GET CHARACTER CODE OF _ IN _

The GET CHARACTER CODE OF statement stores the ASCII code of the character passed in TEXT or TEXT-VAR in NUMBER-VAR. Will fail if the length of the string passed in TEXT or TEXT-VAR is not 1.

Syntax:

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GET CHARACTER CODE OF <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> IN <NUMBER-VAR>

Error Codes:

Multi-byte characters (like emojis and non-ASCII characters) cannot be parsed by this statement. When trying to do so, the operation will fail and the following values will be returned into the ERRORCODE and ERRORTEXT variables:

  • ERRORCODE: 1
  • ERRORTEXT: "Multibyte character received (probably UTF-8). Can't be parsed into a single number."

Warning

Always use the ERRORCODE variable to check if the operation was successful or not. Do not use ERRORTEXT for anything else than displaying the error found, as its contents may change in future releases of LDPL.

STORE QUOTE _ IN _

The STORE QUOTE IN statement allows you to store multiple lines in a single TEXT variable. Between the STORE QUOTE IN and END QUOTE statements whitespace is preserved literally, escape codes like \t and \e work the same as they do in regular text variables (and can themselves be escaped using \\), and double quotes (") don't need to be escaped.

Syntax:

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STORE QUOTE IN <TEXT-VAR>
    #Text goes here
END QUOTE

Example:

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DATA:
template IS TEXT

PROCEDURE:
STORE QUOTE IN template
<html>
    <head><title>{{title}}</title></head>
    <body>{{body}}</body>
</html>
END QUOTE

# ...code to use the template...

GET INDEX OF _ FROM _ IN _

The GET INDEX OF - FROM - IN statement stores in a NUMBER variable the position of the first occurrence of a specified value in a string or TEXT variable. The first position of a string (the first letter) is considered to be the position number 0. The value -1 is stored if there are no occurrences.

Syntax:

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GET INDEX OF <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> FROM <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> IN <NUMBER-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    position IS NUMBER
PROCEDURE:
    GET INDEX OF "is" FROM "LDPL is nice!" IN position
    DISPLAY position CRLF
    # Will display 5.

COUNT _ FROM _ IN _

The COUNT - FROM - IN statement counts all the appearances of a string in another string and stores that value in a NUMBER variable.

Syntax:

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COUNT <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> FROM <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> IN <NUMBER-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    count IS NUMBER
PROCEDURE:
    COUNT "the" FROM "the cat is called theodore" IN count
    DISPLAY count CRLF
    # Will display 2, as the can be found two times in that sentence.

SUBSTRING _ FROM _ LENGTH _ IN _

The SUBSTRING - FROM - LENGTH - IN statement extracts parts of a string, beginning at the character at the specified position and storing in the destination TEXT variable the specified number of characters.

Syntax:

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SUBSTRING <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> FROM <NUMBER or NUMBER-VAR> LENGTH <NUMBER or NUMBER-VAR> IN <TEXT-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    foo IS TEXT
PROCEDURE:
    SUBSTRING "Hello there!" FROM 1 LENGTH 4 IN foo
    # This will extract 4 characters from position 1
    DISPLAY foo CRLF
    # Will display "ello"

TRIM _ IN

The TRIM - IN statement removes whitespace from both sides of a string and stores the resulting string in a TEXT variable.

Syntax:

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TRIM <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> IN <TEXT-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    foo IS TEXT
PROCEDURE:
    TRIM "    hello there!         " IN foo
    DISPLAY foo CRLF
    # Will display "hello there!"

CONVERT _ TO UPPERCASE IN _

The CONVERT - TO UPPERCASE IN statement converts all the characters in a string to uppercase and stores the resulting string in a TEXT variable.

Syntax:

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CONVERT <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> TO UPPERCASE IN <TEXT-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    greeting IS TEXT
PROCEDURE:
    CONVERT "hello there!" TO UPPERCASE IN greeting
    DISPLAY greeting CRLF
    # Will display "HELLO THERE!"

CONVERT _ TO LOWERCASE IN _

The CONVERT - TO LOWERCASE IN statement converts all the characters in a string to lowercase and stores the resulting string in a TEXT variable.

Syntax:

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CONVERT <TEXT or TEXT-VAR> TO LOWERCASE IN <TEXT-VAR>

Example:

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DATA:
    greeting IS TEXT
PROCEDURE:
    CONVERT "HELLO THERE!" TO LOWERCASE IN greeting
    DISPLAY greeting CRLF
    # Will display "hello there!"