Schar

This keyword declares a character string with character coded on 1 byte (with a size limited to a value that cannot exceed 255 characters). It is strongly recommended to use Char declaration to avoid issues when dealing with texts that can contains Unicode characters.

Syntax

Local    Schar NAME(LENGTH)
Local    Schar NAME(LENGTH)(DIMENSIONS)
Variable Schar NAME(LENGTH)(DIMENSIONS)
Value    Schar NAME(LENGTH)(DIMENSIONS)
Const    Schar NAME(LENGTH)(DIMENSIONS)
  • NAME is the name of the variable declared.
  • LENGTH is an integer value between 1 and 255 that defines the maximum length of the string.
  • DIMENSIONS can be:
    • A single numeric value DIM, meaning that you have an array with an index range from 0 to DIM-1.
    • A range of numeric values INDEX1..INDEX, where the index varies between INDEX1 and INDEX2.
    • Several indexes or index ranges separated by a comma. For multiple dimension arrays, up to four dimensions are possible.

Several variable declarations can be done on the same line, separated by a comma.

Local declarations create the variables in the current local variable class that is not seen by nested or calling subprograms. The Call / Subprog and func / Funprog insulate the local variables, as well as the calls of method by fmet.

Const, Variable, and Value declarations state the arguments sent by a Call, func, or fmet. With these syntaxes, the dimensions and the index ranges can be omitted whenever the parenthesis is present. The dimension and index ranges are defined by the calling program.

Example

# Direct declarations
Local Schar MYTEXT(250) : # 250 max character string
Local Schar KEY_ARRAY(20)(1..10) : # An array of 10 character keys of 20 characters maximum.
# A sub-program sending a text and returning a result
Funprog SEND_TEXT(TEXT)
Variable Schar TEXT()(,) : # A 2 dimensions matrix of character strings is sent as references
...
End SEND_STATUS
# A sub-program storing texts
Subprog STORE_TEXTS(TEXT)
Value Schar TEXT()(1..3) : # An array of 3 elements is sent (a copy is done when passing the arguments)
...
End

Comments

The given dimension is the limit of the length allowed for the variable. Any attempt to assign a longer string, or to append characters over the limit defined by the length truncates the variable to the given dimension.

There is still a Global declaration variable that exists for variables that have to be seen in the scope of a process execution, but its use is strongly discouraged.

See also

Tinyint, Shortint, Date, Integer, Float, Double, Decimal, Char, Clbfile, Blbfile, Uuident, Datetime, Instance.