There's Power in Edit Words

Published: December 3, 2008

Hey, Ted:

I am trying to use an edit word to insert hyphens into an account number. I must be doing something wrong, because leading zeros don't show up. I've used edit codes for years, but rarely edit words. Can you help?

--Laurie

You're not doing anything wrong. That's the way edit words work, Laurie. The system blanks out everything before the first non-zero digit, including editing characters. The good news is there's a way around it.

Let's illustrate with an example that many of your fellow readers will be familiar with: those nine-digit Social Security numbers without which Americans can't do anything.

The usual way to edit a Social Security number is to place hyphens after the third and fifth digits, like this: 123-45-6789. I don't know if any Social Security numbers begin with zero or not, but that's irrelevant to this illustration, so I'll assume they can.

The following code uses an edit word to insert the hyphens, as you are trying to with your account numbers.

D SSN             s              9p 0 
D EditedSSN       s             11a   
                                      
 /free                                
     EditedSSN = %editw(SSN:'   -  -    ');

This code works fine if the first digit is not zero, but fails otherwise. Look at the edited values in the following table.

123456789

123-45-6789

12345678

  12-34-5678

12345

     1-2345

The trick is to place a zero in front of the first blank of the edit word. This makes the edited value one character longer, so you'll need to strip off the first character of the edited result.

D SSN             s              9p 0 
D EditedSSN       s             11a   
                                      
 /free
     EditedSSN = %subst(%editw(SSN:'0   -  -    '):2);

Here's the same table, with the new edit word applied.

123456789

123-45-6789

12345678

012-34-5678

12345

000-01-2345

You can use edit words in RPG programs (output specs and the %EDITW built-in function), in DDS (in the EDTWRD keyword), and in the Convert Edit Word (QECCVTEW) API. IBM has packed a good bit of programming logic into edit words. It seems a waste not to take advantage of it.

--Ted

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