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$LISTFROMSTRING (ObjectScript)

Creates a list from a string.

Synopsis

$LISTFROMSTRING(string,delimiter,flag)
$LFS(string,delimiter,flag)

Arguments

Argument Description
string A string to be converted into an InterSystems IRIS list. This string contains one or more elements, separated by a delimiter. The delimiter does not become part of the resulting InterSystems IRIS list.
delimiter Optional — The delimiter used to separate substrings (elements) in string. Specify delimiter as a quoted string. If no delimiter is specified, the default is the comma (,) character.
flag Optional — A two-bit binary bit flag. Available values are 0 (00), 1 (01), 2 (10), and 3 (11). The default is 0.

Description

$LISTFROMSTRING takes a quoted string containing delimited elements and returns a list. A list represents data in an encoded format which does not use delimiter characters. Thus a list can contain all possible characters, and is ideally suited for bitstring data. Lists are handled using the ObjectScript $LIST functions.

You can use the ZWRITE command to display a list in non-encoded format.

Arguments

string

A string literal (enclosed in quotation marks), a numeric, or a variable or expression that evaluates to a string. This string can contain one or more substrings (elements), separated by a delimiter. The string data elements must not contain the delimiter character (or string), because the delimiter character is not included in the output list.

delimiter

A character (or string of characters) used to delimit substrings within the input string. It can be a numeric or string literal (enclosed in quotation marks), the name of a variable, or an expression that evaluates to a string.

Commonly, a delimiter is a designated character which is never used within string data, but is set aside solely for use as a delimiter separating substrings. A delimiter can also be a multi-character string, the individual characters of which can be used within string data.

If you specify no delimiter, the default delimiter is the comma (,) character. You cannot specify a null string ("") as a delimiter; attempting to do so results in a <STRINGSTACK> error.

flag

A two-bit binary bit flag.

  • The 1 bit specifies how to handle adjacent delimiters in string, which correspond to omitted elements in the returned encoded list. 0 represents an omitted element as an empty string (""). 1 represents an omitted element as a null element. This is shown in the following example:

      SET colorstr="Red,,Blue"
  ZWRITE $LISTFROMSTRING(colorstr,,0)
    //  $lb("Red","","Blue")
  ZWRITE $LISTFROMSTRING(colorstr,,1)
    //  $lb("Red",,"Blue")

  • The 2 bit specifies how to handle quotation marks within a string. $LISTFROMSTRING returns delimited substrings in string as quoted string elements. By default, doubled quotation marks in string are preserved in the returned list elements. Setting flag to 2 or 3 causes doubled quotation marks to be removed. This is shown in the following example:

      SET qstr="abc,3,""big"",004.0,""5"",""+0.600"""
  ZWRITE $LISTFROMSTRING(qstr,,0)
    //  $lb("abc","3","""big""","004.0","""5""","""+0.600""")
  ZWRITE $LISTFROMSTRING(qstr,,2)
    //  $lb("abc","3","big","004.0","5","+0.600")

Example

The following example takes a string of names which are separated by a blank space, and creates a list:

   SET namestring="Deborah Noah Martha Bowie"
   SET namelist=$LISTFROMSTRING(namestring," ")
   WRITE !,"1st element: ",$LIST(namelist,1)
   WRITE !,"2nd element: ",$LIST(namelist,2)
   WRITE !,"3rd element: ",$LIST(namelist,3)

See Also

Next section$LISTGET
Previous section$LISTFIND
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