Problem with RIGHT$

[Fred Katzel]

Hi
I have a program that determines how many numbers in an array
begins with a given number, however, if the number ends in zero
I want to exceed it. The part of the program that does this is
as follow:

a$ = (the desired number)
FOR i = 1 TO n
IF LEFT$(n$(i), 1) = a$ THEN
a = a + 1
IF RIGHT$(n$(i), 1) = "0" THEN b = b + 1
END IF
NEXT

Later I subtract b from a to obtain the number that are accept-
able. In some test data "a" was correct but the one number that
ended in a zero the program failed to pickup.

I tried the following one line:

IF LEFT$(n$(i), 1) = a$ AND RIGHT$(n$(i), 1) = "0" THEN b = b + 1

This one line had the same results or should I say the same lack
lack of results.

Fred K



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[Clay Clear]

Fred,

Maybe I read it too quickly, but I am pretty sure that I saw
TWO "IF" statements, but only ONE "END IF" statement. I'll go back
after I post this and see if I misread it. If I did misread it,
please accept my apologies.


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[George Bleck]

Clay, without formatting it looks that way, but it is ok.

Fred, Logically speaking your code is saying:

The b variable only gets incremented if the current array item begins with "magic number" and ends with 0.

Are you sure that the last character in the array item is REALLY a number though (is there a space, a null, etc.)?

------------------
Every day I try to learn one thing new,
but new things to learn are increasing exponentially.
At this rate I’m becoming an idiot faster and faster !!!
------------------
George W. Bleck
Lead Computer Systems Engineer
KeySpan Corporation
My Email

[keith shelton]

Fred why not use

a$ = (the desired number)
FOR i = 1 TO n
  IF RIGHT$(N$(I),1)="0" THEN ITERATE
  IF LEFT$(n$(i), 1) = a$ THEN a = a + 1
NEXT

This should do it.
Keith

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[Peter Lameijn]

Make sure n$ isn't right-filled with space or zero character, or test will fail.

Trim$(n$(i), Any Chr$(32,0))

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Regards,
Peter

[Fred Katzel]

Hi

I have tried all your suggestions with no results. However, I
found that by converting the numbers from their character form
to their numerical form and checking for their desired positions
did work. I still don't know why, IF RIGHT$(n$(i), 1) = "0" ...
doesn't work.

Fred K

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[Tom Hanlin]

As George and Peter hint, it appears that there may be "invisible"
characters in your string that are interfering with the test. You
might print out the string in question, by taking the ASC of each
character, and make sure that it really is what you think it is.
If the problem is not in the string itself, you may have a nastier
problem, such as program corruption from a bad error earlier in the
code.

------------------
Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff