MODULE 7 · WORKING WITH TEXT · 5/8

Counting and replacing with INSPECT

14 min30 XPExercise

INSPECT examines a field character by character. It can count characters (TALLYING), replace them (REPLACING), or translate them one-for-one (CONVERTING). It changes the field in place.

TALLYING

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. INSTALLY.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  WS-TEXT      PIC X(20) VALUE "  12,500,000.00".
       01  WS-COMMAS    PIC 9(2).
       01  WS-BLANKS    PIC 9(2).
       01  WS-BEFORE    PIC 9(2).
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           MOVE 0 TO WS-COMMAS WS-BLANKS WS-BEFORE
           INSPECT WS-TEXT TALLYING WS-COMMAS FOR ALL ","
           INSPECT WS-TEXT TALLYING WS-BLANKS FOR LEADING SPACE
           INSPECT WS-TEXT TALLYING WS-BEFORE
               FOR CHARACTERS BEFORE INITIAL "."
           DISPLAY "COMMAS: " WS-COMMAS
           DISPLAY "LEADING SPACES: " WS-BLANKS
           DISPLAY "CHARACTERS BEFORE POINT: " WS-BEFORE
           STOP RUN.

Output:

COMMAS: 02
LEADING SPACES: 02
CHARACTERS BEFORE POINT: 12

FOR ALL "x" counts every occurrence.
FOR LEADING "x" counts occurrences at the start, stopping at the first character that does not match.
FOR CHARACTERS counts every character. Add BEFORE INITIAL "x" or AFTER INITIAL "x" to limit INSPECT to part of the field; this works with the other forms too.

Like UNSTRING's tally, the counter is added to, so zero it first.

REPLACING

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. INSREPL.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  WS-ACCT      PIC X(8)  VALUE "   45120".
       01  WS-PHONE     PIC X(12) VALUE "021-555-0199".
       01  WS-NOTE      PIC X(20) VALUE "Late fee, waived".
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           INSPECT WS-ACCT REPLACING LEADING SPACE BY "0"
           DISPLAY WS-ACCT
           INSPECT WS-PHONE REPLACING ALL "-" BY SPACE
           DISPLAY WS-PHONE
           INSPECT WS-PHONE REPLACING FIRST "5" BY "X"
           DISPLAY WS-PHONE
           INSPECT WS-NOTE CONVERTING "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz,"
                                   TO "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ;"
           DISPLAY WS-NOTE
           STOP RUN.

Output:

00045120
021 555 0199
021 X55 0199
LATE FEE; WAIVED

REPLACING LEADING SPACE BY "0" zero-fills a right-aligned number, a very common clean-up before moving text into a numeric field.
REPLACING ALL changes every occurrence; FIRST changes only the first.
The replacement must be the same length as what it replaces. INSPECT never makes a field longer or shorter. To remove characters, replace them with spaces and close the gaps another way.

CONVERTING

CONVERTING "abc" TO "xyz" translates each character in the first string into the character at the same position in the second: every a becomes x, every b becomes y, and so on. The last statement above upper-cases the note and turns commas into semicolons in a single pass. Both strings must be the same length.

You can also count and replace in one statement, INSPECT f TALLYING n FOR ALL "," REPLACING ALL "," BY ";". The tally is taken before any replacing happens.

On the job

INSPECT is the classic data-cleansing tool, and much older than the intrinsic functions you will meet next. You will find it zero-filling keys, stripping characters that would break a downstream file format, translating lowercase to uppercase, and counting delimiters to check a record has the right number of fields before it is unstrung.

Your task

Call-centre notes are being added to a comma-separated extract, so they must not contain commas. Read two lines from input:

A free-text note (WS-NOTE, PIC X(50)), e.g. late fee, waived, call back
An account number (WS-ACCT, PIC X(8)), right-aligned with leading spaces, e.g. 45120

Then:

count the commas in the note,
convert the note to upper case and every comma to a semicolon,
zero-fill the account number.

Display:

ACCOUNT: 00045120
COMMAS: 02
NOTE: LATE FEE; WAIVED; CALL BACK

Use INSPECT for all three jobs.

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