Types of Functions

In this section:

 

You can access any of the following types of functions:


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WebFOCUS-specific Functions

Most Information Builders-supplied functions are available in both WebFOCUS and FOCUS. However, some functions are available only in WebFOCUS. They are:

For details on these functions, see the individual topics.


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Character Functions

The following functions manipulate alphanumeric fields or character strings. For details, see Character Functions.

ARGLEN
Measures the length of a character string within a field, excluding trailing blanks.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

ASIS
Distinguishes between a blank and a zero in Dialogue Manager.

Available Languages: reporting

BITSON
Evaluates an individual bit within a character string to determine whether it is on or off.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

BITVAL
Evaluates a string of bits within a character string and returns its value.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

BYTVAL
Translates a character to its corresponding ASCII or EBCDIC decimal value.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

CHKFMT
Checks a character string for incorrect characters or character types.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

CTRAN
Translates a character within a character string to another character based on its decimal value.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

CTRFLD
Centers a character string within a field.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

EDIT
Extracts characters from or adds characters to a character string.

Available Languages: reporting

GETTOK
Divides a character string into substrings, called tokens, where a specific character, called a delimiter, occurs in the string.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

LCWORD
Converts the letters in a character string to mixed case.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

LCWORD2
Converts the letters in a character string to mixed case.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

LCWORD3
Converts the letters in a character string to mixed case.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

LJUST
Left-justifies a character string within a field.

Available Languages: reporting

LOCASE
Converts alphanumeric text to lowercase.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

OVRLAY
Overlays a base character string with a substring.

Available Languages: reporting

PARAG
Divides a line of text into smaller lines by marking them with a delimiter.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

POSIT
Finds the starting position of a substring within a larger string.

Available Languages: reporting

REVERSE
Reverses the characters in a character string.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

RJUST
Right-justifies a character string.

Available Languages: reporting

SOUNDEX
Searches for a character string phonetically without regard to spelling.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

SPELLNM
Takes an alphanumeric string or a numeric value with two decimal places and spells it out with dollars and cents. This function is available only for WebFOCUS.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

SQUEEZ
Reduces multiple contiguous spaces within a character string to a single space.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

STRIP
Removes all occurrences of a specific character from a string.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

STRREP
Replaces all occurrences of a specific character string.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

SUBSTR
Extracts a substring based on where it begins and its length in the parent string.

Available Languages: reporting

TRIM
Removes leading and/or trailing occurrences of a pattern within a character string.

Available Languages: reporting

UPCASE
Converts a character string to uppercase.

Available Languages: reporting


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Variable Length Character Functions

The following functions manipulate variable length alphanumeric fields or character strings. For details, see Variable Length Character Functions.

LENV
Returns the actual length of an AnV field or the size of an An field.

Available Languages: reporting

LOCASV
Converts alphanumeric text to lowercase in an AnV field.

Available Languages: reporting

POSITV
Finds the starting position of a substring in an AnV field.

Available Languages: reporting

SUBSTV
Extracts a substring based on where it begins and its length in the parent string in an AnV field.

Available Languages: reporting

TRIMV
Removes leading and/or trailing occurrences of a pattern within a character string in an AnV field.

Available Languages: reporting

UPCASV
Converts a character string to uppercase in an AnV field.

Available Languages: reporting


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Character Functions for DBCS Code Pages

The following functions manipulate character strings for DBCS code pages. For details, see Character Functions for DBCS Code Pages.

DCTRAN
Translates a single-byte or double-byte character to another character.
DEDIT
Extracts characters from or adds characters to a string.
DSTRIP
Removes a single-byte or double-byte character from a string.
DSUBSTR
Extracts a substring based on its length and position in the source string.
JPTRANS
Converts Japanese specific characters.

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Maintain-specific Character Functions

The following functions manipulate alphanumeric fields or character strings. They are available only in the Maintain language. For details, see Maintain-specific Character Functions.

CHAR2INT
Translates an ASCII or EBCDIC character to the integer value it represents, depending on the operating system.
INT2CHAR
Translates an integer into the equivalent ASCII or EBCDIC character, depending on the operating system.
LCWORD and LCWORD2
Converts the letters in a character string to mixed case.
LENGTH
Measures the length of a character string, including trailing blanks.
LJUST
Left-justifies a character string within a field.
LOWER
Converts a character string to lowercase.
MASK
Extracts characters from or adds characters to a character string.
MNTGETTOK
Divides a character string into substrings, called tokens.
NLSCHR
Converts a character from the native English code page to the running code page.
OVRLAY
Overlays a base character string with a substring.
POSIT
Finds the starting position of a substring within a larger string.
RJUST
Right-justifies a character string.
SELECTS
Decodes a value from a stack.
STRAN
Substitutes a substring for another substring in a character string.
STRCMP
Compares two alphanumeric strings using the ASCII or EBCDIC collating sequence.
STRICMP
Compares two alphanumeric strings using the ASCII or EBCDIC collating sequence, but ignoring case differences.
STRNCMP
Compares a specified number of characters in two character strings starting at the beginning of the strings using the EBCDIC or ASCII collating sequence.
SUBSTR
Extracts a substring based on where it begins and its length in the parent string.
TRIM
Removes trailing occurrences of a pattern within a character string.
TRIMLEN
Determines the length of a character string excluding trailing spaces.
UPCASE
Converts a character string to uppercase.

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Data Source and Decoding Functions

The following functions search for data source records, retrieve data source records or values, and assign values. For details, see Data Source and Decoding Functions.

DB_LOOKUP
Retrieves a data value from a lookup data source.

Available Languages: reporting, MODIFY

DECODE
Assigns values based on the coded value of an input field.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FIND
Determines if an incoming data value is in an indexed FOCUS data source field.

Available Languages: reporting

LAST
Retrieves the preceding value for a field.

Available Languages: reporting

LOOKUP
Retrieves a data value from a cross-referenced FOCUS data source in a MODIFY request.

Available Languages: MODIFY, Maintain


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Date Functions

In this section:

The following functions manipulate dates. For details see Date Functions.



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Standard Date Functions
DATEADD
Adds a unit to or subtracts a unit from a date format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DATECVT
Converts date formats.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DATEDIF
Returns the difference between two dates in units.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DATEMOV
Moves a date to a significant point on the calendar.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DATETRAN
Formats dates in international formats.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DPART
Extracts a component from a date field and returns it in numeric format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FIYR
Returns the financial year, also known as the fiscal year, corresponding to a given calendar date based on the financial year starting date and the financial year numbering convention.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FIQTR
Returns the financial quarter corresponding to a given calendar date based on the financial year starting date and the financial year numbering convention.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FIYYQ
Returns a financial date containing both the financial year and quarter that corresponds to a given calendar date..

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HMASK
Extracts components from a date-time value and moves them to a target date-time field with all other components of the target field preserved.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

TODAY
Retrieves the current date from the system.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain



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Legacy Date Functions
AYM
Adds or subtracts months from dates that are in year-month format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

AYMD
Adds or subtracts days from dates that are in year-month-day format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

CHGDAT
Rearranges the year, month, and day portions of alphanumeric dates, and converts dates between long and short date formats.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DA
Convert dates to the corresponding number of days elapsed since December 31, 1899.

DADMY converts dates in day-month-year format.

DADYM converts dates in day-year-month format.

DAMDY converts dates in month-day-year format.

DAMYD converts dates in month-year-day format.

DAYDM converts dates in year-day-month format.

DAYMD converts dates in year-month-day format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DMY, MDY, and YMD
Calculate the difference between two dates.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DOWK and DOWKL
Find the day of the week that corresponds to a date.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DT

Converts the number of days elapsed since December 31, 1899 to the corresponding date.

DTDMY converts numbers to day-month-year dates.

DTDYM converts numbers to day-year-month dates.

DTMDY converts numbers to month-day-year dates.

DTMYD converts numbers to month-year-day dates.

DTYDM converts numbers to year-day-month dates.

DTYMD converts numbers to year-month-day dates.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

GREGDT
Converts dates in Julian format to year-month-day format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

JULDAT
Converts dates from year-month-day format to Julian (year-day format).

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

YM
Calculates the number of months that elapse between two dates. The dates must be in year-month format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain


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Date-Time Functions

The following functions manipulate date- time values. For details see Date-Time Functions.

HADD
Increments a date-time field by a given number of units.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HCNVRT
Converts a date-time field to a character string.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HDATE
Extracts the date portion of a date-time field, converts it to a date format, and returns the result in the format YYMD.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HDIFF
Calculates the number of units between two date-time values.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HDTTM
Converts a date field to a date-time field. The time portion is set to midnight.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HEXTR
Extracts components from a date-time value and moves them to a target date-time field with all other components set to zero.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HGETC
Stores the current date and time in a date-time field.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HMASK
Extracts components from a date-time value and moves them to a target date-time field with all other components of the target field preserved.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HHMMSS
Retrieves the current time from the system.

Available Languages: reporting

HINPUT
Converts an alphanumeric string to a date-time value.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HMIDNT
Changes the time portion of a date-time field to midnight (all zeros).

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HNAME
Extracts a specified component from a date-time field and returns it in alphanumeric format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HPART
Extracts a specified component from a date-time field and returns it in numeric format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HSETPT
Inserts the numeric value of a specified component into a date-time field.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HTIME
Converts the time portion of a date-time field to the number of milliseconds or microseconds.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HTMTOTS/TIMETOTS
Converts a time to a timestamp.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain


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Maintain-specific Date and Time Functions

In this section:

The following functions manipulate dates and times. They are available only in the Maintain language. For details, see Maintain-specific Date and Time Functions.



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Maintain-specific Standard Date and Time Functions
HHMMSS
Retrieves the current time from the system.
Initial_HHMMSS
Retrieves the time that the Maintain module was started.
Initial_TODAY
Retrieves the date that the Maintain module was started.
TODAY
Retrieves the current date from the system.
TODAY2
Retrieves the current date from the system.


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Maintain-specific Legacy Date Functions
ADD
Adds a given number of days to a date.
DAY
Extracts the day of the month from a date.
JULIAN
Determines the number of days that have elapsed so far in the year up to a given date.
MONTH
Extracts the month from a date.
QUARTER
Determines the quarter of the year in which a date resides.
SETMDY
Sets a value to a date.
SUB
Subtracts a given number of days from a date.
WEEKDAY
Determines the day of the week for a date.
YEAR
Extracts the year from a date.

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Format Conversion Functions

The following functions convert fields from one format to another. For details, see Format Conversion Functions.

ATODBL
Converts a number in alphanumeric format to double-precision format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

EDIT
Converts an alphanumeric field that contains numeric characters to numeric format or converts a numeric field to alphanumeric format.

Available Languages: reporting

FPRINT
Converts a field to alphanumeric format.

Available Languages: reporting

FTOA
Converts a number in a numeric format to alphanumeric format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

HEXBYT
Obtains the ASCII or EBCDIC character equivalent of a decimal integer value.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

ITONUM
Converts a large binary integer in a non-FOCUS data source to double-precision format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

ITOPACK
Converts a large binary integer in a non-FOCUS data source to packed-decimal format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

ITOZ
Converts a number in numeric format to zoned format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

PCKOUT
Writes a packed number of variable length to an extract file.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

PTOA
Converts a packed decimal number from numeric format to alphanumeric format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

UFMT
Converts characters in alphanumeric field values to hexadecimal representation.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

XTPACK
Stores a packed number with up to 31 significant digits in an alphanumeric field, retaining decimal data.

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Maintain-specific Light Update Support Functions

The following functions retrieve WebFOCUS variable or parameter data implicitly from within a Maintain procedure. These functions are available only in WebFOCUS Maintain. For details, see Maintain-specific Light Update Support Functions.

IWC.GetAppCGIValue
Imports the value of a WebFOCUS parameter or variable into a WebFOCUS Maintain variable.
IWC.FindAppCGIValue
Retrieves WebFOCUS parameter or variable values.

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Numeric Functions

The following functions perform calculations on numeric constants or fields. For details, see Numeric Functions.

ABS
Returns the absolute value of a number.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

ASIS
Distinguishes between a blank and a zero in Dialogue Manager.

Available Languages: reporting

BAR
Produces a horizontal bar chart.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

CHKPCK
Validates the data in a field described as packed format.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

DMOD, FMOD, and IMOD
Calculate the remainder from a division.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

EXP
Raises the number "e" to a specified power.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

EXPN

Is an operator that evaluates a number expressed in scientific notation. For information, see Using Expressions in the Creating Reports With WebFOCUS Language manual.

FMLINFO
Returns the FOR value associated with each row in an FML report.

Available Languages: reporting

FMLLIST
Returns a string containing the complete tag list for each row in an FML request.

Available Languages: reporting

FMLFOR
Retrieves the tag value associated with each row in an FML request.

Available Languages: reporting

FMLCAP
Returns the caption value for each row in an FML hierarchy request.

Available Languages: reporting

INT
Returns the integer component of a number.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

LOG
Returns the natural logarithm of a number.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

MAX and MIN
Return the maximum or minimum value, respectively, from a list of values.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

MIRR
Calculates the modified internal rate of return for a series of periodic cash flows.

Available Languages: reporting

NORMSDST and NORMSINV
Perform calculations on a standard normal distribution curve.

Available Languages: reporting

PRDNOR and PRDUNI
Generate reproducible random numbers.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

RDNORM and RDUNIF
Generate random numbers.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

SQRT
Calculates the square root of a number.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

XIRR
Calculates the internal rate of return for a series of cash flows that can be periodic or non-periodic.

Available Languages: reporting


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Maintain-specific Script Functions

Script functions integrate JavaScript and VBScripts into your WebFOCUS Maintain applications and perform client-side execution without returning to the WebFOCUS Server. These functions are available only in WebFOCUS Maintain. For details, see Maintain-specific Script Functions.

IWCLink
Executes external procedures.
IWCSwitchToSecure and IWCSwitchToUnsecure
Turns the Secure Sockets layer on and off, respectively.
IWCTrigger
Returns control from the script to your application.

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System Functions

The following functions call the operating system to obtain information about the operating environment or to use a system service. For details, see System Functions.

CLSDDREC
Closes a file and frees the memory used to store information about open files.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FEXERR
Retrieves an Information Builders error message.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

FINDMEM
Determines if a specific member of a partitioned data set (PDS) exists in batch processing.

Available Operating Systems: z/OS

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

GETCOOKI
Retrieves the value of a browser cookie.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

GETHEADR
Retrieves the value of an HTTP Header variable.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

GETPDS
Determines if a specific member of a partitioned data set (PDS) exists, and if it does, returns the PDS name.

Available Operating Systems: z/OS

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

GETUSER
Retrieves the ID of the connected user.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

MVSDYNAM
Transfers a FOCUS DYNAM command to the DYNAM command processor.

Available Operating Systems: z/OS

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

PUTCOOKI
Submits a value to a browser cookie.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

PUTDDREC
Writes a character string as a record in a sequential file. Opens the file if it is closed.

Available Languages: reporting, Maintain

SLEEP
Suspends execution for a specified number of seconds.

Available Languages: reporting

SPAWN
Spawns a child process to execute system commands without terminating the current procedure. After the child process terminates, control returns to the parent process. This function is available only for WebFOCUS.

Available Operating Systems: UNIX

Available Languages: reporting

SYSTEM
Calls a DOS program, a DOS batch program, or a Windows application. This function is available only for WebFOCUS.

Available Operating Systems: Windows

Available Languages: reporting


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