TALLY Function

Purpose

Returns the number of times a string appears in another string.

Parameters

x and y are string expressions that must have computational type and should be character or bit.

Description

TALLY returns the number of times the string x appears in the string y. The result is a Fixed Binary (31,0) value. If y does not appear in x, the result is zero. If any of these two expressions is a null string, the result is zero.

Examples

dcl s char (40);
   dcl n fixed bin (15);

   s = 'peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.';

   n = tally(s, 'p');
   put skip list ("'p'  appears " || trim(n) || ' times.');

   n = tally(s, 'pe');
   put skip list ("'pe' appears " || trim(n) || ' times.');

   n = tally(s, 'pi');
   put skip list ("'pi' appears " || trim(n) || ' times.');

   n = tally(s, 'ck');
   put skip list ("'ck' appears " || trim(n) || ' times.');

will print:

'p'  appears 8 times.
'pe' appears 4 times.
'pi' appears 3 times.
'ck' appears 3 times.

Restrictions

None.