Purpose |
Return a delimited field from a string expression. |
Syntax |
a$ = PARSE$(string_expr [, {[ANY] string_delimiter | BINARY}], index&) |
Remarks |
PARSE$ uses the following parameters: |
string_expr |
The
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string_delimiter |
Contains delimiter character(s). A delimiter is a character, list of characters, or string, that is used to mark the end of a field in string_expr. For example, if you consider a sentence to be a list of words, the delimiter between the works is a space (or perhaps punctuation). Text files typically consist of lines that are delimited by CR/LF ($CRLF or CHR$(13,10)) characters; a database file may consist of items separated by commas; etc. A delimiter is not considered part of a field, but as the divider between fields, so the delimiter is never returned by PARSE$. If the ANY keyword is used, string_delimiter contains a set of characters, any of which may act as a delimiter character. If the ANY keyword is omitted, the entire string_delimiter string acts as a single delimiter. Delimiters are case-sensitive, so capitalization may be a consideration. If string_delimiter is not specified, or contains an empty string, special rules apply. The delimiter is assumed to be a comma. Fields may optionally be enclosed in quotes. Such quotes are considered as special field delimiters and are not returned as part of the result string. Any characters that appear between a quote mark and the next comma delimiter character are discarded. If no leading quote is found, any leading or trailing spaces are trimmed before the result string is returned. |
BINARY |
The BINARY option presumes that string_expr was created with the JOIN$/BINARY function, or its equivalent, which creates a string as a binary image or in the PowerBASIC and/or Visual Basic packed string format: If a string is shorter than 65535 bytes, it starts with a 2-byte length WORD followed by the string data. Otherwise it will start a 2-byte value of 65535, followed by a DWORD indicating the string length, then finally the string data itself. |
index& |
An
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See also |
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Example |
a$ = PARSE$("one,two,three", 2) ' returns "two" a$ = PARSE$("one;two,three", 2) ' returns "three" a$ = PARSE$("one",2) ' returns "" a$ = PARSE$("xyz",1) ' returns "xyz" a$ = PARSE$("xx1x","x",3) ' returns "1" a$ = PARSE$("1;2,3", ANY ",;", 2) ' returns "2" |