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CONCATENATE

Use the '+' (plus) operator to concatenate strings or a combination of strings and other type values to produce a single string value.

Syntax

string1 + string2 + ... + value1 + ...
  • string1 - The first string that you want to concatenate.
  • string2 - The second string that you want to concatenate.
  • value1 - A value of some type of number, date or boolean that you want to add to the new string value.

Return type

  • string

Examples

 

ExpressionResult
12 + ” kilometers”“12 kilometers”
“This statement is ” + TRUE + ”.”“This statement is true.”
“I was born on ” + Me.birthDateAndTime + ”.”  (Me.birthDateAndTime = 01-12-1970 23:00:45)“I was born on Tue Dec 01 23:00:45 CET 1970.”

There exists a STR_CONCAT (string, string) function in the expression language. As it can only concatenate 2 strings, and is much longer in typing, we advise to use above way for concatenating strings.

 

JOIN

This function joins a series of values into one string, separated with a character of your choice.

Syntax

JOIN(argument1, argument2, ..., separator)
  • argument1, argument2 - Attributes or expressions that contain the values that will be joint to a single string. JOIN works for all base types, even multivalued.
  • separator - A string value that will be used as separator symbol.

Return type

  • string
an UNKNOWN value will be represented as an empty entry in the result string.

The CONCAT function is identical to the JOIN function.

Examples

Suppose a model containing the following 4 attributes.

 

AttributeBasetypeValue
Person.namestring“John”
Person.date_of_birthdate01-01-1995
Person.family_namestring 

 

 

ExpressionResult
JOIN(Person.name,Person.date_of_birth,”;”)“John;Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1995”
JOIN(Person.name,Person.name,”@”)“John@John”
JOIN(Person.name,Person.family_name,  YEARS BETWEEN Person.date_of_birth AND DATE(2015,01,01),”;”)“John;;20”

 

MATCH

The MATCH function compares a string pattern to another string and returns TRUE if the string exactly matches the pattern, and otherwise FALSE. The MATCH function is case-sensitive.

Syntax

MATCH(pattern, string)
  • pattern - An attribute of base type string or a string value. String must be a valid regular expression. The regular expressions used in several Blueriq Studio functions are common Java 1.4 expressions. For a complete documentation we refer to the online java documentation.
  • string - String value, attribute of base type string or an expression that results in a string value.

Return type

  • boolean

Examples

If the attribute File.name is of base type string and its value is “Thisfile_1.doc” then

  • MATCH(“Thisfile_1.doc”, File.name) results in TRUE
  • MATCH(File.name, ”Thisfile_1.doc”) results in TRUE
  • MATCH(” Thisfile_1.doc”, File.name) results in FALSE
  • MATCH(“thisfile_1.doc”, File.name) results in FALSE
  • MATCH(“[A-Z]hisfile_1.doc”, File.name) results in TRUE
  • MATCH(“[a-z]hisfile_1.doc”, File.name) results in FALSE
  • MATCH(“Thisfile_[0-9].doc”, File.name) results in TRUE
  • MATCH("..............", File.name) results in TRUE
  • MATCH(".*", File.name) results in TRUE
  • MATCH("**", "**") results in an error message, because "**" is not a valid regular expression

FIND

The FIND function looks for one string pattern within another string and returns the first matching characters. The function is case-sensitive.

Syntax

FIND(pattern, attribute)
  • pattern - An attribute of base type string or a string value. String must be a valid regular expression. The regular expressions used in several Blueriq Studio functions are common Java 1.4 expressions. For a complete documentation we refer to the online java documentation.
  • attribute - An attribute of base type string or an expression that results in a string.

Return type

  • string

Examples

If File.name is an attribute of base type string with value “Thisfile_1.doc”, then:

  • FIND(“_[1-5]”, File.name) results in “_1”
  • FIND(“File”, File.name) results in UNKNOWN
  • FIND(“el”, “Hello”) results in “el”
  • FIND(“eo”, “Hello”) results in UNKNOWN

FIRST

FIRST returns the first character(s) of a string, based on the number of characters you specify.

Syntax

FIRST integer CHARACTERS OF string
FIRST CHARACTER OF string
  • integer - A positive integer value. This can be either an attribute of base type integer, an expression that results in an integer or a constant integer value. FIRST CHARACTER OF can be used to retrieve only the first character of the string.
  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • string

If you prefer a functional syntax, you can use the STR_FRONT( string, integer ) function. Example: STR_FRONT("Blueriq", 3) = "Blu"

Examples

If File.name is an attribute of base type string with value “Thisfile_1.doc” and the integer attribute File.prefix has value 8 then:

  • FIRST File.prefix CHARACTERS OF File.name results in “Thisfile”
  • FIRST CHARACTER OF File.name results in “T”

Example

  • FIRST 2 CHARACTERS OF (LAST 6 CHARACTERS OF “pieceofcake”) results in “of”
  • LAST 3 CHARACTERS OF (FIRST 4 CHARACTERS OF “what's in a name”) results in “hat”

 

use a combination of FIRST and LAST to retrieve a subset from inside a string.

 

LAST

LAST returns the last character(s) of a string, based on the number of characters you specify.

Syntax

LAST integer CHARACTERS OF string
LAST CHARACTER OF string
  • integer - A positive integer value. This can be either an attribute of base type integer, an expression that results in an integer or a constant integer value. LAST CHARACTER OF can be used to retrieve only the last character of the string.
  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • string

If you prefer a functional syntax, you can use the STR_BACK ( string, integer ) function. Example: STR_BACK("Blueriq", 3) = "riq"

Examples

If File.name is an attribute of base type string with value “Thisfile_1.doc” and the integer attribute File.extension has value 3 then:

  • LAST File.extension CHARACTERS OF File.name results in “doc”
  • LAST CHARACTER OF File.name results in “c”

Example

  • FIRST 2 CHARACTERS OF (LAST 6 CHARACTERS OF “pieceofcake”) results in “of”
  • LAST 3 CHARACTERS OF (FIRST 4 CHARACTERS OF “what's in a name”) results in “hat”

LENGTH

LENGTH returns the length of a string

Syntax

LENGTH ( string )

  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • integer

Spaces at the start of the end of the string are counted as well, the string is not trimmed.

Example

  • LENGTH( "Blueriq" ) = 7
  • LENGTH( " Blueriq " ) = 9
  • LENGTH( ? ) = ?

UPPER

UPPER returns a string with all characters in uppercase

Syntax

UPPER ( string )

  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • string

Example

  • UPPER( "hello" ) = "HELLO"

  • UPPER( "WORLD" ) = "WORLD"

  • UPPER( "hello world " ) = "HELLO WORLD "

  • UPPER( " hELLo " ) = " HELLO "

  • UPPER( ? ) = ?

LOWER

LOWER returns a string with all characters in lowercase

Syntax

LOWER ( string )

  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • string

Example

  • LOWER( "hello" ) = "hello"
  • LOWER( "WORLD" ) = "world"
  • LOWER( "Hello World " ) = "hello world "
  • LOWER( " hELLo " ) = " hello "
  • LOWER( ? ) = ?

CAPITALIZE

CAPITALIZE returns a string with the first character uppercased

Syntax

CAPITALIZE ( string )
CAPITALIZE ( string, lowerTheRest )

  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.
  • lowerTheRest - A boolean or expression that results in a boolean, indicating that the other characters need to be lowercased. This parameter is optional and if it is not supplied, the other characters are left untouched.

Return type

  • string

Example

  • CAPITALIZE( "hello" ) = "Hello"

  • CAPITALIZE( "WORLD" ) = "WORLD"

  • CAPITALIZE( "hello world " ) = "Hello world "

  • CAPITALIZE( " hELLo " ) = " hELLo "

    The input string is not trimmed, so in this case the first character is a space.

  • CAPITALIZE( "hello" , TRUE ) = "Hello"

  • CAPITALIZE( "WORLD" , TRUE ) = "World"

  • CAPITALIZE( "hello world " , TRUE ) = "Hello world "

  • CAPITALIZE( " hello " , TRUE ) = " hELLo "

    The input string is not trimmed, so in this case the first character is a space.

  • CAPITALIZE( ? ) = ?

TRIM

TRIM strips the leading and trailing spaces from a string 

Syntax

TRIM ( string )

  • string - An attribute of base type string, an expression that results in a string or a constant string value.

Return type

  • string

Example

  • TRIM( "Hello" ) = "Hello"
  • TRIM( "Hello World" ) = "Hello World"
  • TRIM( "   Hello   World   " ) = "Hello   World"
  • TRIM( ? ) = ?
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