RE: Testing for first non-blank character

[Abhishek Kumar <Abhishek.Kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

      Dear Roger,
                       Why not use CHECK opcode this way :-

        C     ' '       CHECK String     Pos   2 0
        
         This checks for blank character from left and returns the position
         in the string where the blank character is not found.
         The Pos Numeric Field will contain the position of the first
         Non Blank from left . This can be used for a Substring from that
         position to the end of the field.
   
       regards,
       Abhishek

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger Pence [SMTP:rp@rogerpence.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 6:22 AM
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      Re: Testing for first non-blank character
> 
> > Does anybody have a brilliant little piece of RPGIII code to test for
> the
> > first non-blank character in a right-justified (sorry, JDE stuff)
> character
> > field so that I can substring from that position to the end of the
> field?
> I
> > really don't want to use a data structure and test each character if I
> don't
> > have to... I have my pride <g>.
> 
> Many years ago, Julian Monypenny showed me this clever technique. It uses
> two moves to continually shift off each left most position of the source
> string. The key to the technique is to have a work field 1 byte shorter
> than
> the string you're parsing.  Julian benchmarked this against several other
> methods and this one was wayyyy faster. Sorry for the pseudo code, but
> you'll get the idea.
> 
> Const srcStrLen = 60
> srcStr LEN( srcStrLen )
> tgtStr  LEN( srcStrLen - 1 )
> tstStr  LEN( 1 )
> 
> for x = 1 to srcStrLen
>     * move leftmost char of source string to work value
>     MoveL srcStr to tstStr
>     * test it for blanks
>     if tstStr = *BLANK
>         do something
>         * if you choose to break out of the loop here, x = position of
> first
> blank character in source string
>     endif
>     * next two lines shift off current leading character of source string
>     movel srcStr tgtStr
>     move tgtStr  srcStr
> next x
> 
> rp
> 
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