SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

452 DEFINE—!ENDDEFINE
• The arguments to string manipulation functions can be strings, variables, or even other
macros. A macro argument or another function can be used in place of a string.
• The strings within string manipulation functions must be either single tokens, such as
ABC, or delimited by apostrophes or quotation marks, as in ‘A B C’. See Table 1 for a set
of expressions and their results.
Table 1 Expressions and results
Expression Result
!UPCASE(abc) ABC
!UPCASE(‘abc’) ABC
!UPCASE(a b c) error
!UPCASE(‘a b c’) A B C
!UPCASE(a/b/c) error
!UPCASE(‘a/b/c’) A/B/C
!UPCASE(!CONCAT(a,b,c)) ABC
!UPCASE(!CONCAT(‘a’,‘b’,‘c’)) ABC
!UPCASE(!CONCAT(a, b, c)) ABC
!UPCASE(!CONCAT(‘a ’,‘b ’,‘c ’)) A B C
!UPCASE(!CONCAT(‘a,b,c’)) A,B,C
!QUOTE(abc) ‘ABC’
!QUOTE(‘abc’) abc
!QUOTE(‘Bill”s’) ‘Bill”s’
!QUOTE(“Bill’s”) “Bill’s”
!QUOTE(Bill’s) error
!QUOTE(!UNQUOTE(‘Bill”s’)) ‘Bill”s’
!LENGTH (str) Return the length of the specified string. The result is a character
representation of the string length. !LENGTH(abcdef) returns 6.
If the string is specified with apostrophes around it, each apostrophe
adds 1 to the length. !LENGTH (‘abcdef’) returns 8. If an
argument is used in place of a string and it is set to null, this
function will return 0.
!CONCAT(str1,str2 . . .) Return a string that is the concatenation of the strings. For example,
!CONCAT (abc,def) returns abcdef.
!SUBSTR (str,from,[length]) Return a substring of the specified string. The substring starts at
the from position and continues for the specified length. If the
length is not specified, the substring ends at the end of the input
string. For example, !SUBSTR (abcdef, 3, 2) returns cd.
!INDEX (haystack,needle) Return the position of the first occurrence of the needle in the
haystack. If the needle is not found in the haystack, the function
returns 0. !INDEX (abcdef,def) returns 4.