HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
FILL
Used to replace all the blanks between the field boundaries and the first
or last nonblank data character with a designated character.
Syntax
{TRAILING}
FILL{LEADING } "character"
Parameters
TRAILING FILL TRAILING replaces those blanks following the data
with the specified character.
LEADING FILL LEADING replaces the blanks preceding the data with
the specified character.
character The specified character is any single character.
Discussion
The FILL statement can be used to format data entered into or moved to
any field. (For automatic formatting, refer to the SET command earlier
in this section.) As is true of all formatting statements, FILL has an
immediate effect on the data in the memory buffer; the formatted data is
then available for display or copying into the application. When the
user enters data into a field for which formatting is specified, the data
is formatted as soon as ENTER or an appropriate function key is pressed.
Thus, FORMSPEC formatting is done before data is written to the data or
batch file. (In contrast, reformatting through REFORMAT, described in
Section 5, is done after data is collected, edited, and written to the
batch file.)
Note that no formatting occurs when the field is blank.
Example
Statement Data Entered After Formatting
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FILL TRAILING "*" [ 250 ] [ 250***]
JUSTIFY RIGHT [ 250 ] [0000250]
FILL LEADING "O"
Note that more than one formatting statement can be specified. Since the
statements are executed in order of appearance, the FILL statement in the
second example above affects the data justified by the preceding JUSTIFY
statement.