edits help

[Kenneth Brody]

On 5/26/2011 11:07 PM, Jeff Harrison wrote:
[...]
>>>>         { @ |  (!"'"!<&39;>) | * }
[...]
>> Pop quiz time.  I hope everyone has been keeping good  notes...
>>
>> Why does the above edit fail on fields with an apostrophe, if  the "@" part
>> is left off?
>
> Good question.  I never understood this - that is probably why I can't remember
> to use the @.  Is it because filepro is examining the original string before any
> replacement took place?  The end resulting string is larger but filepro needs to
> know that when it comes to the end of the original string that it is ok to
> continue?

Well, it was hinted at by someone elsethread.  You're on the right track, 
however.

Since no one else has chimed in...

Without it, the "accept any amount of any character" part of the edit will 
accept all of the trailing spaces.  Because the "&39;" expansion has 
increased the number characters in the field, the result no longer fits.  By 
adding the "@" (which must come before the "*"), all of the trailing spaces 
are consumed, and are not part of the resulting value.  Therefore, unless 
the expanded value is too long to fit, the edit "works".  (Consider the case 
of a field consisting of nothing but apostrophes.)  However, using DOEDIT() 
and passing an explicit length, can work around this.

-- 
Kenneth Brody