A Better way of testing values?

[KeithW]

Hi All,

I have a character field that contains a nine-digit numeric value. There are certain sequences that need to be prevented, such as:
all of the same digit (i.e. 111111111, or 222222222, etc.) Also there is a desire to prevent sequences such as: 123456789, 234567890, etc.

I had thought about use the contains operator ($) to test these 30+ combinations. In A5, is there a bettter way to do this type of testing?

Regards,
Keith

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: A Better way of testing values?

Keith, you could store the prohibited strings in an array and use <array>.find(). If not found you know the current string is not prohibited.

Perhaps an easier way to the same result would use the inlist2() function.

-- tom

[Stan Mathews]

Re: A Better way of testing values?

Hi All,

I have a character field that contains a nine-digit numeric value. There are certain sequences that need to be prevented, such as:
all of the same digit (i.e. 111111111, or 222222222, etc.) Also there is a desire to prevent sequences such as: 123456789, 234567890, etc.

I had thought about use the contains operator ($) to test these 30+ combinations. In A5, is there a bettter way to do this type of testing?

Regards,
Keith

Maybe your own function would be easier to maintain. Like

FUNCTION prohib AS L (string AS C )
	prohib = .T. 'default return value
	dim bad as C
	bad = <<%a%
	000000000
	111111111
	222222222
	333333333
	444444444
	555555555
	666666666
	777777777
	888888888
	999999999
	123456789
	234567890
	345678901
	456789012
	567890123
	678901234
	789012345
	890123456
	901234567
	012345678
	%a%
if (.not. is_one_of(string,bad))
	prohib = .F.
end if
END FUNCTION

'usage like
'? prohib("125789841")
'= .F.
'
'? prohib("123456789")
'= .T.

[KeithW]

Re: A Better way of testing values?

Tom and Stan,

Thanx for your suggestions. Especially since you each suggested different methods/commands and none of those I had "discovered" as of yet. I originally coded it with the "$" (String Inclusion) operator and I was looking to see if there was a better way.

In the process I discovered another operator that I would have coded but thankfully the A5 staff already did, *Reverse(). I built the Ascending String and then "Reversed" it for the other test, so I ended up making two (2) strings, the repeated version "111,222,333...", etc and then the "123456789,234567890,.." and Reversed that for the Descending Version.

I appreciate the input. So far the hardest part of dealing with A5, is learning to deal with the Object Oriented concepts and thinking in those terms for the potential commands. The "$" was easy for me to adapt to, however, I would never have thought to look for a command name "is_one_of()" no matter how logical it would seem, once it was found.

One of the greatest things regarding A5, is there is a command to do just about anything you want to do...

One of the worst things about A5, is there is two or more commands to do just about anything you would need to do...

Regards,
Keith

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: A Better way of testing values?

Keith, I'm glad you got it going. I agree that the help file becomes much more useful once you begin to get a feel for the different categories into which everything has been indexed. Here I thought immediately of lists. After all you were describing a series of character strings... a list of strings, if you will. The index entry for Lists led to a solution quickly.

-- tom