$Str

Treat a longstring as string

Most Sirius $functions have been deprecated in favor of Object Oriented methods. There is no OO equivalent for the $Str function.

This function takes a longstring input and produces a string output, silently truncating the result at 255 bytes or shorter if the target is shorter.

The $Str function accepts one argument and returns a string result that is the first argument truncated at the $function target's length.

The first argument is an arbitrary string.

Syntax

%STR = $Str(longstring)

%STR is up to the first 255 bytes of longstring.

For example, if %LINCOLN was a LONGSTRING %variable containing the text of the Gettysburg Address and %AGE was a STRING LEN 20

%AGE = $Str(%LINCOLN)

would result in %AGE containing "Four score and seven".

The main utility of the $Str function is to prevent the request cancellation that would result from a direct assignment from a LONGSTRING value to a STRING %variable that is too small to hold the entire value. While the input to $Str could be a regular STRING this doesn't really make much sense since a regular STRING can be assigned to a regular STRING without request cancellation for truncation, anyway. A $Str would upgrade a WITH expression that's its argument to a LONGSTRING WITH expression but this is again rather silly as the result would then simply be truncated at 255 bytes should it exceed 255 bytes. $Str also makes sense as a quick shorthand for the first 255 bytes of a LONGSTRING, even if the target is a LONGSTRING.

$Str is only available in Sirius Mods Version 6.2 and later.

Products authorizing $Str

• Sirius functions
• Fast/Unload User Language Interface
• Janus Open Client
• Janus Open Server
• Janus Sockets
• Janus Web Server
• Japanese functions
• Sir2000 Field Migration Facility