IBM Mainframe Forum

How do u calculate the total no of characters in string

You can use INSPECT to count the characters in a variable.

COBOL does not have "strings" in the sense other languages have strings (where the length can vary while the program is running). COBOL WORKING-STORAGE variables, whether numeric, alphabetic, or alphanumeric, are fixed length and that length is fixed at compile time. There are ways to simulate strings in COBOL but such techniques require some advanced knowledge of COBOL.

Please use the below path
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocente ... 4ls140.htm

there is a indirect way to solve this problem

specify the string is test-string

example：

UNSTRING TEST-string
DELIMITED BY
INTO COUNT1 COUNT IN LEN
DELIMITER IN STD.

NOW,I FIND THE WAY TO SOLVE THIS QUESTION
EXAMPLE
MOVE LENGTH OF STRING1 TO A

IT'S USE LENGTH OF TO CALCULATE THE TOTAL NO OF CHANRS IN STRING

OTHER
INSPECT STRING1 TALLYING FOR CHARACTERS BEFORE L

YOU CAN USE THIS TO CALCULATE THE TOTAL NO OF CHARS

Hello,

Neither of your "solutions" is completely true/useful. . .

Both will execute, but the results will most likely be different. . .

Also, turn off your CAPS LOCK. . .

1) What is the "delimiter'"? For the sake of discussion, let's assume it to be a space. 2) What defines "characters in a string"? If the "string" is a name like "George Washington", the lenght of the "string" is 17 characters. This could be determined by redefining the variable as a table and count from the end until the first non-space character is reached. If we count from the left until the first delimiter (aka space) is reached, the routine would only count 6 characters. If we simply count non-space characters, the result would be 16. These are not COBOL issues, I'd ask the same for any programming language.