Index Function

[gartmin]

Does Cognos have an index function? I am building a report and only want to count records with a certain character value inside a long character field. In SAS I believe it looks like this...

index(var1, 'charactervalue') > 0

So when used, if the string 'charactervalue' is contained anywhere in the variable var1, I would get a return.

[MFGF]

Hi,

The function you are looking for is position().

In Cognos 8, your example would be:

position('charactervalue', [var1])

If the string 'charactervalue' is not contained within the var1 item, the result would be 0, otherwise it would be the starting character position of charactervalue within var1.

Best regards,

MF.

[mikewalker]

The thing about the position() function is that it does _NOT_ allow a "starting from" value.

Does anyone know of a way around this in C8? Any similar functions or workarounds?
Eg

If the value for [Column1] is 'Part1;Part2;Part3', how can I selectively substring each different part out?

(I was hoping to use MSSQL's CHARINDEX function in C8, but it compains about this for some reason)

TIA
Michael

[COGNOiSe administrator]

Just add the missing function to FM and report processors.

[mikewalker]

I decided it was easier to create a view and use that instead!

Thanks for the tip though! :)

Cheers
Michael