/
Variable length strings and arrays

Variable length strings and arrays

Apr 26, 2013

While looking through the help for some information on maximum string sizes, I came across this little nugget: you can declare variable length strings and arrays. As in, you pass a number (a dimension) into a procedure, and you can use that dimension in a data declaration. 

You can also do this dynamically with New() of course, but this is a much simpler and cleaner approach. 

Here's the Help example:

PROGRAM MAP TestProc(LONG) END CODE TestProc(200) !can also be an initialized variable TestProc PROCEDURE(LONG VarLength) VarString STRING(VarLength) CODE VarString = 'String of up to 200 characters'

The Help also shows how to handle variable length arrays. 

There are restrictions - the variable can only be local to a procedure or routine, and cannot be in a class, group etc. 

See the topic Variable Size Declarations for more information. 

Rick Martin and Mike Hanson tell me that this syntax will also work. 

TestProc PROCEDURE(string s) VarString STRING(len(s))

Comments