Condensing Field Contents
The CONDENSE statement deletes redundant spaces from a string:
CONDENSE <c> [NO-GAPS].
This statement removes any leading blanks in the field <c> and replaces other sequences of blanks by exactly one blank. The result is a left-justified sequence of words, each separated by one blank. If the addition NO-GAPS is specified, all blanks are removed.
DATA: STRING(25) VALUE ' one two three four',
LEN TYPE I.
LEN = STRLEN( STRING ).
WRITE: STRING, '!'.
WRITE: / 'Length: ', LEN.
CONDENSE STRING.
LEN = STRLEN( STRING ).
WRITE: STRING, '!'.
WRITE: / 'Length: ', LEN.
CONDENSE STRING NO-GAPS.
LEN = STRLEN( STRING ).
WRITE: STRING, '!'.
WRITE: / 'Length: ', LEN.
Output:
one two three four !
Length:
one two three four !
Length:
18onetwothreefour !
Length:
15Note that the total length of the field STRING remains unchanged, but that the deleted blanks appear again on the right.