Creates a list from a string.

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

$LISTFROMSTRING takes a quoted string containing delimited elements and returns a Caché 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 various $LIST functions.

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.

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.

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

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