Variables have a syntax that can force a format on their values. Typical uses are as follows:?Force values to lowercase or uppercase characters ?Truncate the length of values ?Enquote textYou embed formatting options in variable syntax as follows:%[[?][-][width][.[-]precision][c][H][F][U|L][T][M][q][Q]:]<varname>%The variable formatting options are the following:Format option Description ? Mandatory field, if a null value is returned the translate call fails n (where n is an integer) Blanks or zeros added to the right to fill the width and justify the output to the left -n Blanks or zeros added to the left to fill the width and justify the output to the right width Copies the specified minimum number of characters to the output buffer .[-]precision Copies the specified maximum number of characters to the output buffer .L Lower-case characters .U Upper-case characters .F Combined with L and U, applies conversion to first character .T Leading and trailing white space trimmed from the variable .H Converts number to hexadecimal .c Upper-case first letter and lower-case next letters .n Truncates to n first characters .-n Truncates to n last characters M Extracts a portion of the variable name, this option uses the width and precision parameters to identify the portion to extract q Enquotes the variable (single quotes) Q Enquotes the variable (double quotes)
?Truncate the length of values
?Enquote textYou embed formatting options in variable syntax as follows:%[[?][-][width][.[-]precision][c][H][F][U|L][T][M][q][Q]:]<varname>%The variable formatting options are the following:Format option Description
? Mandatory field, if a null value is returned the translate call fails
n (where n is an integer) Blanks or zeros added to the right to fill the width and justify the output to the left
-n Blanks or zeros added to the left to fill the width and justify the output to the right
width Copies the specified minimum number of characters to the output buffer
.[-]precision Copies the specified maximum number of characters to the output buffer
.L Lower-case characters
.U Upper-case characters
.F Combined with L and U, applies conversion to first character
.T Leading and trailing white space trimmed from the variable
.H Converts number to hexadecimal
.c Upper-case first letter and lower-case next letters
.n Truncates to n first characters
.-n Truncates to n last characters
M Extracts a portion of the variable name, this option uses the width and precision parameters to identify the portion to extract
q Enquotes the variable (single quotes)
Q Enquotes the variable (double quotes)