String Functions

 

When working with strings, it is also possible to use several functions to modify the inputs.

 

The (+) operator can be used not only for adding numbers but also to concatenate strings (the Concat function serves the same purpose, note that it can only take exactly two strings as an input).

 

 

 

 

UCase and LCase can be used to convert whole strings to upper or lower case, respectively.

 

 

 

It is possible to retrieve part of the string using Left (first x characters), Right (last x characters) or Mid (x characters from the middle of the string).

 

 

 

 

It may often be useful to combine those with the additional function Length, which returns the length of the string. This way, we can, for example, quickly remove the last two characters by asking for the first (Length-2) characters only.

 

 

 

 

It is also possible to replace a part of the string with a different text. Replacing a part of the string with an empty string can work as a means to remove specific parts from each text - for example, remove the brand name from model labels. Note that the function is case sensitive.

 

 

 

Find is a function that returns the position of one string within another string (or 0 if not found). It can be used, for example, to identify specific rows (in this case - remove models that have “Van” in their name)

 

 

 

In this example of Find, what we want is to have the name of the make such as Alpina only. Let's see how to do this.

 

First of all, we need to get the full model name by using RowProperty(@Label). Then we need to check the position of the space in the string by using Find and ask for the initial X-1 characters - so all characters before the space.

 

 

 

 

Final string function was already mentioned earlier - Split can be used to create a list of strings from one string, so it is effectively an opposite of the Join function.