RPG Example to remove Letters from Telephone Number field in RPG ILE

RPG Example to remove Letters from Telephone Number

Just working on a project to create an American IRS 1099 Extract File. Lots of field data management rules in the file thats going to be sent to the IRS. One of them is that all telephone number fields must be numeric only left adjusted. Of course, in our Alphameric AS400 JBA System the phone number if free format and can be stored just however the user has entered. Some look like 123-456-4564 some like 123 123 1234 or (123)123-1234 or peoples names, extensions and the rest.

A little head scratching and coding and I found this neat solution… yes I know the UP, LO and SPECIAL values could be put in one value BUT I though it made it more readable and already had the UP and LO defined for some case conversion on another field.

Here’s a little code example that explains it:

dcl-s telephoneNumber char(50) inz(' Cell: (123) 333-4444.');
dcl-s numbersOnly varchar(50);

// case conversion variables
dcl-c UPPER const('ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ?');
dcl-c lower const('abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz?');
dcl-c gubbins const('!@#$%¢&*()_+=-¬¦{}¬¦;:,.<>?');
dcl-c nuffink const('                           ');

// strip out all alpha characters and left adjust the number
// for example - a number entered as (540)362-8521ext77
// would be returned as 540362852177
// HASHTAG a nice alternative to read each element and checking if its 1234567890
dsply telephoneNumber;

numbersOnly = telephoneNumber;
numbersOnly = %xlate(UPPER:nuffink:numbersOnly);
numbersOnly = %xlate(lower:nuffink:numbersOnly);
numbersOnly = %xlate(gubbins:nuffink:numbersOnly);

// read through the field and squish it the left
DoW %Scan(' ': %TRIMR(numbersOnly)) > *Zeros;
 numbersOnly=%Replace('':numbersOnly:%Scan(' ':%TRIMR(numbersOnly)):1);
Enddo;

dsply numbersOnly;

*inlr = *on;
return;

So when this code snipper you should see something like this:

DSPLY    Cell: (123) 333-4444.   
DSPLY  1233334444                
                                 
Press Enter to continue.         

numbersOnly = %triml(%scanRpl(' ':'':numbersOnly));