String Functions

left()

left has two parameters, a string and number n, and returns the first n characters of the string. For example:
left("race result";4) - returns race
left([LastName];1) - returns the first character of the last name

right()

right has two paramters, a string and a number n, and returns the last n characters of the string. For example:
right("race result";4) - returns sult
right([LastName];1) - returns the last character of the last name

mid()

mid has three parameters, a text and two numbers m and n. It returns n characters of the string, beginning at the m-th character. For example:
mid("race result"; 6; 3) - returns res

instr()

instr returns the position of the first occurence of a substring in a string. The first parameters determines where to start searching.
instr(1;"race result";" ") - returns 5
instr(2;"ab";"a") - returns 0, since there is no a if searching from the second character on.

instr2()

instr2 is similar to instr(), but considers áàä etc. as a, éèê etc. as e, and so on
instr2(1;"ráce result";"a") - returns 2

SplitString()

SplitString takes 3 parameters - a string, a delimeter and a number n.

The string is split at each occurence of the delimeter, then the nth object is returned, for example:

SplitString("a,b,c,d"; ","; 3) returns c

val()

val converts a string into a number. For example, this function can be used to sort numerically by the values in an additional text field.
val([ATF1]) - can be used for numerical sorting by ATF1
val("3")<val("20") - returns 1 (true)
"3"<"20" - returns 0 (false due to text comparison)

len()

len returns the length of a text.
len("race result") - returns 11.
len([LastName]) - returns the length of the last name

lcase()

The function LCase converts all characters to lower case.
UCase([LastName]) & ", " & LCase([FirstName]) - returns for example DOE, john

ucase()

The function UCase converts all characters to upper case.
UCase([LastName]) & ", " & LCase([FirstName]) - returns for example DOE, john

trim()

trim removes white spaces at the beginning and end of a text and returns the remaining string:
trim(" Hello World   ") - returns "Hello World"

string()

string has two parameters, a number n and a text. It repeats the text n times.
string(3; "Run! ") - return "Run! Run! Run! ".

replace()

replace replaces parts of a text by another text.
replace("race result"; " "; "-") - returns "race-result".

reduceChars()

reduceChars has two strings a and b as parameters and returns only those characters of a that are part of b:

 

reduceChars("race result 12 software 2020"; "0123456789") - returns 122020

 

removeAccents()

removeAccents removes accents from any letter:
removeAccents("Café au Lait") - returns "Cafe au Lait"

chr()

Chr has one parameter and converts an ASCII code to the corresponding character.
chr(65) - returns "A"

asc()

Asc has one parameter and returns the ASCII code of the first character of the parameter.
 asc("A") - returns 65.

ordinal()

ordinal returns English ordinal numbers:
ordinal(1) - returns "1st"
ordinal(3) - returns "3rd"
ordinal(15) - returns "15th"

similarity()

The function similarity returns the similarity of two strings as value between 0 and 1.
similarity("Hansaplast";"HansPlasta") - returns 0.625
similarity([LastName];[LastName]) - returns 1

CorrectSpelling()

The function CorrectSpelling converts the characters of the first/last name to upper and lower case as expeceted: the first character will be in upper case, all other characters in lower case. The words "de", "der", "und", "van", "von" and "zu" always will be in lower case.
CorrectSpelling("max VON uNd zu mustERMann") - returns Max von und zu Mustermann

stringCount()

stringCount takes two strings a and b. It returns how often b appears in a

 

stringCount("race result 12"; "r") - returns 2