Ah, I withdraw my confusion; IBM needed to emphasize the word "first" more than they did, perhaps, but Gil's explanation finally got through to me. It's something I may be able to keep in mind in the future. Or maybe not. But:
myVar = 'word1 word2 9.12 word3.ext' Parse Var myVar . . . myVal '.' . First it divides the string by the literal '.': 1) 'word1 word2 9' 2) '12 word3.ext' The first part gets divided by the parse string ". . . myVal", which results in "word1", "word2", '9' and ''. The second part is parsed by '.', which is "12 word3.ext". Weird, but at least the universe makes sense again. The trick, I guess, is to remember to class parsing operations according to precedence, just as we do with arithmetic and Boolean operators. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths good theatre. -Gail Godwin */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Monday, February 24, 2020 16:29 Here's where it tries to describe it: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.2.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r2.ikja300/parspat.htm ... First, the language processor scans the source string for '[literal-string-pattern]' ... Examples are nice, but they don't completely imply rules. It's woefully inadequate. The rules should be stated in such a way that the behavior can be inferred without reference to examples. The importance of "First" can't be emphasized too much. The effect of multiple string patterns should be clarified. --- On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 20:43:52 +0000, Ambros, Thomas wrote: >A trivial item, but this surprised me. > >I wanted to parse out the string 'word3' using the period as a place holder. >The input could have a blank delimited string containing an embedded period >before the one I wanted to parse out. The Parse Var as coded didn't work. >Using the Parse Value as coded there does work. I didn't know it would behave >like that. I can't seem to find this documented but I might have overlooked >something. > >myVar = 'word1 word2 9.12 word3.ext' >Parse Var myVar . . . myVal '.' . > ... >Trace R of that code: > > 3 *-* myVar = 'word1 word2 9.12 word3.ext' > >>> "word1 word2 9.12 word3.ext" > 4 *-* Parse Var myVar . . . myVal '.' . > >.> "word1" - > >.> "word2" > >.> "9" > >>> "" > >.> "12 word3.ext" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
