LPL syntax to return all characters to left of dash in field

Hi-

I'm trying to determine the LPL syntax needed to return all characters to the left of a dash in a field. I did find a post on this forum that showed how to return a certain number of characters from the start of a field but the number of characters can vary in my scenario so I can hardcode the length.

The field I'm working with is: PrimaryWorkAssignment.Location.Description

Examples of what can be in the field include:

OO-Administration

TNONC-Administation

AZ ABC-Administration

Ultimately I want to peel out the value of everything to the left of the dash which is a practice identifier.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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andy

I don't know if you can natively string split or leverage a regex in LPL. You could add a script engine / script in the Data Area in rich client and then call a method defined in that script in a derived field.

Dr. Awesome

3 concepts:

These derived fields are trying to find the name of a Filename and just the Ext of a filename.

FileNameOnly is a DerivedField
   type is Alpha 150
   restricted
   initialize I1
   while (I1 <= 70)
      if (FileName[I1] = ".")
         return FileName[1:I1-1]
      if (FileName[I1] = " ")
         return FileName
      increment I1

   return FileName

FileNameExtention is a DerivedField
   type is Alpha 10
   restricted
   initialize I1
   while (I1 <= 50)
      if (FileName[I1] = ".")
         return FileName[I1:50]
      increment I1

   return blank

You can also walk an alpha field like an array

ArrI = 0
            while (ArrI < sizeofarray AlphaValue)
                ArrI += 1
                if (ArrI <= ReturnLength)
                    RetVal.Part[ArrI] = AlphaValue[ArrI]
                else
                    return (ReturnValueConcatenated)
            return (ReturnValueConcatenated)


Looking for "User:.*" and substringing:

EmployeeIdentityGUID is a DerivedField

            type is Alpha 200
            if (EmployeeIdentity matches "User:.*")
                return EmployeeIdentity[6:EmployeeIdentityLength]
            else
                return EmployeeIdentity

Legacy Contributor

I was trying to get the first approach to work but after adding the derived field and adding the LPL, the 'I1' variable isn't compiling where it is saying it is an invalid field. I then tried replacing that with the actual field I'm trying to parse but that didn't make sense when reading the code.

Below is what I was trying to get to work:

Employee is a BusinessClass
owned by hr

Derived Fields

OOPracticeName is a DerivedField
type is Alpha size 200
default label is untranslatable:"OOPracticeName"
restricted
initialize I1
while (I1 <= 200)
if (PrimaryWorkAssignment.Location.Description[I1] = "-")
return PrimaryWorkAssignment.Location.Description[1:I1 - 1]
increment I1
return PrimaryWorkAssignment.Location.Description

richard-lyons

You have to declare the "I1" variable separately as a Numeric user field.

For instance, here is LPL code I have for a similar process.

We declared "Pos" as a user field:

PurchaseOrder is a BusinessClass
owned by po

Persistent Fields

Pos is Numeric size 2

Then we declared another user field to do the parsing, we called ours GetPONumber.

PurchaseOrder is a BusinessClass
owned by po

Derived Fields

GetPONumber is a DerivedField
type is Alpha size 50
if (PurchaseOrder entered)
initialize Pos
while (Pos <= 50)
if (Reference1[Pos] = "-")
return Reference1[1:(Pos - 1)]
increment Pos
return PurchaseOrder

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