String Operations

Text in Lasso is stored and manipulated using the string data type or the [String] methods. This chapter details the symbols and methods that can be used to manipulate string values.

• Overview provides an introduction to the string data type and how to cast values to and from other data types.
• String Symbols details the symbols that can be used to create string expressions.
• String Manipulation describe the methods that can be used to modify string values.
• String Conversion describes the methods that can be used to convert the case of string values.
• String Validation describes the methods that can be used to compare strings.
• String Information describes the methods that can be used to get information about strings and characters.
• String Casting describes the [String->Split] method which can be used to cast a string to an array value.

Information about regular expression can be found in the Regular Expressions chapter which follows. The string type is often used in conjunction with the bytes type to convert binary data between different character encodings (UTF-8, ISO-8859-1). See the Bytes chapter for more information about the bytes type.

Overview

Many Lasso methods are dedicated to outputting and manipulating text. Lasso is used to format text-based HTML pages or XML data for output. Lasso is also used to process and manipulate text-based HTML form inputs and URLs. Text processing is a central function of Lasso.

As a result of this focus on text processing, the string data type is the primary data type in Lasso. When necessary, all values are cast to string before subsequent tag or symbol processing occurs. All values are cast to string before they are output into the HTML page or XML data which will be served to the site visitor.

There are three types of operations that can be performed directly on strings.

• Symbols can be used to perform string calculations within Lasso methods or to perform assignment operations within LassoScripts.

['The' + ' ' + 'String'] 

The String

• String methods can be used to manipulate string values or to output portions of a string.

['The String'->Substring(4, 6)] 

String

• String methods can be used to test the attributes of strings or to modify string values.

[String_LowerCase('The String')] 

the string

Each of these methods is described in detail in the sections that follow. This guide contains a description of every symbol and method and many examples of their use. The Lasso Reference is the primary documentation source for Lasso symbols and method. It contains a full description of each symbol and tag including details about each parameter.

Unicode Characters

Lasso 9 supports the processing of Unicode characters in all string methods. The escape sequence \u... can be used with 4, or 8 hexadecimal characters to embed a Unicode character in a string. For example \u002F reprsents a / character, \u0020 represents a space, and \u0042 represents a capital letter B. The same type of escape sequence can be used to embed any Unicode character \u4E26 represents the Traditional Chinese character .

Lasso also supports common escape sequences including \r for a return character, \n for a new-line character, \r\n for a Windows return/new-line, \f for a form-feed character, \t for a tab, and \v for a vertical-tab.

Casting Values to Strings

Values can be cast to the string data type automatically in many situations or they can be cast explicitly using the [String] method.

[String]

Casts a value to type string. Requires one value which is the data to be cast to a string. An optional second parameter can be used when casting byte streams to a string and specified what character set should be used to translate the byte stream (defaults to UTF-8).

Examples of automatic string casting:

• Integer and decimal values are cast to strings automatically if they are used as a parameter to a string symbol. If either of the parameters to the symbol is a string then the other parameter is cast to a string automatically. The following example shows how the integer 123 is automatically cast to a string because the other parameter of the + symbol is the string String.

['String ' + 123]  String 123

The following example shows how a variable that contains the integer 123 is automatically cast to a string.

[var(Number = 123)] ['String ' + var(Number)]  String 123

• Array, map, and pair values are cast to strings automatically when they are output to a Web page. The value they return is intended for the developer to be able to see the contents of the complex data type and is not intended to be displayed to site visitors.

[(Array: 'One', 'Two', 'Three')] 

 (Array: (One), (Two), (Three))

[(Map: 'Key1'='Value1', 'Key2'='Value2')] 

 (Map: (Key1)=(Value1), (Key2)=(Value2))

[(Pair: 'Name'='Value')] 

 (Pair: (Name)=(Value))

More information can be found in the Arrays and Maps chapter.

• The parameters for string substitution tags are automatically cast to strings. The following example shows how to use the [String_Length] substitution tag on a numeric value from a field.

[Field: 'Age'] 

 21

 

[String_Length: (Field: 'Age')] 

 2

To explicitly cast a value to the string data type:

• Integer and decimal values can be cast to type string using the [String] tag. The value of the string is the same as the value of the integer or decimal value when it is output using the [Variable] tag.

The following example shows a math calculation and the integer operation result 579. The next line shows the same calculation with string parameters and the string symbol result 123456.

[123 + 456]  579 

[(String: 123) + (String: 456)]  123456

• Boolean values can be cast to type string using the [String] tag. The value will always either be True or False. The following example shows a conditional result cast to type string.

[(String: ('dog' == 'cat'))]  false

• String member tags can be used on any value by first casting that value to a string using the [String] tag. The following example shows how to use the [String->Size] member tag on a numeric value from a field by first casting the field value to type string.

[Field: 'Age']  21

[(String: (Field: 'Age'))->Size]  2

• Byte streams can be cast to strings including the character set which should be used to export the data in the byte stream. By default byte streams are assumed to contain UTF-8 character data. For example, the following code would translate a byte stream contained in a variable by interpreting it as ISO-8859-1 character data. This is analogous to using the [Bytes->ExportString] tag which is described in more detail in the following chapter on Bytes.

[String: $myByteStream, 'iso-8859-1']