String Functions

This function converts text that represents a number into a float value.

Syntax: atof(str)

Parameters:

Return Type: Float

Error messages:

If you attempt to pass an empty string or a string with letters into either atoi or atof, you will see:

Example of atof and atoi:

This function converts text that represents a number into an integer value.

Syntax: atoi(str)

Parameters:

Return Type: Integer

Error messages:

• If you attempt to pass an empty string or a string with letters into either atoi or atof, you will see:

  

• If you attempt to pass a string with a decimal point ("123.456") into atoi, you will see:

  

Example of atof and atoi:

Takes an encoded Base64 string and returns it as a plain text string.

Syntax: decodebase64("str")

Parameters:

This function parses the string parameter and converts it into its Base64 equivalent, as an encoded string.

Syntax: encodebase64("str")

Parameters:

Return Type: String

Example of encodebase64:

encodebase64("abc"); will return the Base64 format of String "abc". In this example, it is YWJj.

Example of using encodebase64 for information in a URL string

webSvcsUser = "WebSvcsUserHere";
webSvcsPassword = "WebSvcsPasswordHere";
 
webSvcResult = dict("string");
headers = dict("string");
 
httpAuthUserAndPassword = webSvcsUser + ":" + webSvcsPassword;
httpAuthEncodedString = encodebase64(httpAuthUserAndPassword);
 
put(headers, "Authorization", "Basic " + httpAuthEncodedString);
 
print _user_session_id;
 
url = "https://sitename.oracle.com/rest/v8/commerceDocumentsBase_process_bmClone_5Transaction/7737901/transactionLine";
params = "";
 
webSvcResult = urldata(url, "GET", headers, params);
 
print webSvcResult;
 
return "";

This function checks whether a string ends with a particular substring.

Example Use Case: Determine if a part number starts with a certain text and if a part number contains a specific suffix.

Syntax: endswith(str, substring)

Parameters:

Return Type: Boolean

Example of startswith and endswith:

We know that the return of endResults will be true because the string "I like this string", ends with the substring "string".

This function returns the position of a substring within a string.

Example Use Cases:

• Multi-select menu checking
• Find a value or where a value exists within a string
• Powerful when used with a substring function

Syntax: find(str, substring, [start], [end])

Parameters:

Return Type: Integer

Example:

This example uses four different variations of the find function:

• emptyTest: We are trying to see what will be returned if we pass two empty strings through the find function.
• test_2: what will happen if you try to pass the same two empty strings, but also define the optional start index for the substring.
• longTest: shows what is returned when we pass through a string and substring, but begin searching for the substring at an index that is outside of the length of the string.
• result: shows what happens if find is looking for a substring and contains both a start and end index.

Takes a number and returns it as a formatted currency string.

• This function takes the first parameter and formats that number to the transaction's currency if used within a commerce transaction or the current user's currency otherwise.
• The second parameter can be included to format the value to a different currency if desired.

Syntax: formatascurrency(x, [currencyCode])

Parameters:

Return Type: Boolean

Example:

formatascurrency(32.15, "EUR"); will return the string "€32,15".

This function takes a formatted currency string and returns the string's numeric value. It parses the first parameter using the currency format specified by the currency code passed in the second parameter and returns the float value.

Syntax: getcurrencyvalue(value, [currencyCode])

Parameters:

Return Type: Float or Boolean

Example:

getcurrencyvalue("€32,15", "EUR"); will return the Float 32.15.

This function provides a method for HTML escaping (output encoding) of a string as safe plain text. This applies for content that originated from user input which could be vulnerable to injection attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS).

Oracle CPQ recommends using html as a best practice for content written to a web page to avoid possible injection attacks since the string will be rendered as inactive plain text on the web page.

Syntax: String html(String str)

Parameters:

Return Type: String

Examples:

Safe content example: html("<test>"); will return the string "<test>

Unsafe/XSS attack example where content is neutralized: html("<script>/*Bad content here ... */</script>"); will return the string <script>/* Bad content here... */</script>

This function concatenates a String array into a String with a specified delimiter.

• If str_array is empty, then the function returns an empty string.
• If both str and delimiter are empty, then the function returns an empty string.
• If delimiter is empty, then the function returns all the array entries concatenated.

Syntax: join(String[] str_array, String delimiter)

Parameters:

Return Type: Boolean

Example:

strArr1 = string[]{"1", "2", "3"}; strArr2 = join(strArr1, ""); will set the value of strArr2 to "123".

The Boolean function isnumber(str) returns true when the string is a number and false if it contains other characters.

Example Use Case: Check if a table cell contains a number. This check needs to be performed to prevent system errors when converting that value to a number.

Syntax: isnumber(str)

Parameters:

Return Type:  Boolean

Example:

The len function returns the length of a string.

Example Use Case: To constrain the length of an input text field.

Syntax: len(str)

Parameters:

Return Type: Integer

Example:

This function converts all characters in the text into all lowercase letters.

Example Use Cases:

• Used in table comparisons to make sure you have clean data.
• Ignore case in searches.
• Correcting mistakes made from not following Best Practices during implementation.

Syntax: lower(str)

Parameters:

Return Type: String

Example of upper & lower:

The code will print three different examples:

• Application of the upper(str) function to a typical output string.
• Application of the same function to an empty string.

• Application of the lower(str) function to the same string. You will notice a blank space in between the upper(str) and lower(str) functions. This represents the return that will occur if you use an empty string.

  This function is case sensitive.
  If the string is empty, then the function will return an empty string.

Use this function to return a copy of a string, with all occurrences of the old parameter replaced with the new parameter. All occurrences of the old substring are replaced by new. If the optional integer argument is given, only the first n occurrences are replaced.

Example Use Case: You must replace multiple subsets of a string.

Syntax:replace(str, old, new, [n])

Parameters:

Return Type: Copy of String with replacements made.

Example:

This function splits a String at the specified separator, populates a string array, and trims all of the blank spaces from the result.

• If str is empty string then function returns empty array of size 1.
• If both str and separator is empty, then function returns empty array of size 1.
• If separator is empty, then every character in the string str is split.

Syntax: String[] split(str, separator)

Parameters:

Return Type:  String

Example:

strArray = split("a.b.c", ""); will return an array with every character split: ["a",".", "b", ".", "c"] with a size of 5.

This function checks whether a string starts with a particular substring.

Example Use Case: Determine if a part number starts with a certain text and if a part number contains a specific suffix.

Syntax: startswith(str, substring)

Parameters:

Return Type: Boolean

Example of startswith and endswith:

We know that the return of endResults will be true because the string "I like this string", ends with the substring "string".

Converts a float, integer or boolean value into text.

Syntax: string(float(integer(boolean)))

Parameters:

Return Type: String

Example:

This function returns a part of the text from a larger text.. This function is case sensitive.

Example Use Cases:

• Break a large string down into similar strings
• Test characters of dynamic part numbers
• Determine which characters are at what index

Return Type: String

Example of substring:

We are performing a number of actions with the substring function:

• subStr: The first thing you should notice is that substring is being populated by using the str, start index and optional [end] index.
• test_1: This is using the find function with the substring we just defined.
• negIndResults: Here we are giving you an example of what happens when you use a negative start and end index.
• longStartInd: This last example shows you what to expect if start is given an index value that is greater than the length of the string.

This function removes the white space from both edges of strings.

Example Use Case: Compare strings with leading or trailing white space.

Return Type: String

Example:

This converts all characters in the text into all uppercase letters.

Example Use Cases:

• Used in table comparisons to make sure you have clean data.
• Ignore case in searches.
• Correcting mistakes made from not following Best Practices during implementation.

Syntax: upper(str)

Parameters:

Return Type: String

Example of upper & lower:

The code will print three different examples:

• Application of the upper(str) function to a typical output string.
• Application of the same function to an empty string.

• Application of the lower(str) function to the same string. You will notice a blank space in between the upper(str) and lower(str) functions. This represents the return that will occur if you use an empty string.

  This function is case sensitive.
  If the string is empty, then the function will return an empty string.