IDL supports several basic string operations, as described below:
|
Operation |
Description |
|
Concatenation |
The Addition operator, “+”, can be used to concatenate strings together. |
|
Formatting Data |
The STRING function is used to format data into a string. The READS procedure can be used to read values from a string into IDL variables. |
|
Case Folding |
The STRLOWCASE function returns a copy of its string argument converted to lowercase. Similarly, the STRUPCASE function converts its argument to uppercase. See Case Folding. |
|
White Space Removal |
The STRCOMPRESS and STRTRIM functions can be used to eliminate unwanted white space (blanks or tabs) from their string arguments. |
|
Length |
The STRLEN function returns the length of its string argument. See Finding the Length of a String. |
|
Substrings |
The STRPOS , STRPUT , and STRMID routines locate, insert, and extract substrings from their string arguments. See Substrings. |
|
Splitting and Joining Strings |
The STRSPLIT function is used to break strings apart, and the STRJOIN function can be used to join them. |
|
Comparing Strings |
The STRCMP , STRMATCH , and STREGEX functions perform string comparisons. See Comparing Strings. |