Welcome
Developing
Developing EGL applications
Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
EGL Language Reference
The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
EGL core system libraries and variables
EGL library strLib
The strLib functions manipulate and convert data to and from STRING variables and format date/time variables.
characterLen()

Overview
Getting started
Installing
Upgrading and migrating
EGL Code Accelerator for IBD
Developing
- Model driven development of EGL code
- Generating source code from UML models
  You can use transformations to create source code from a UML model. First you must create a transformation parameters file and then apply those parameters to a model.
- Generating the EGL Dependency Graph from EGL projects
- Generating Source Code from OpenAPI Documents
- Developing EGL applications
  Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
  - How to use this documentation
  - Additional information about EGL
    The most recent EGL documentation is in the IBM Business Developer documentation.
  - EGL Programmer's Guide
    The EGL Programmer's Guide covers using EGL within the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), as well as some of the common programming tasks that EGL developers perform.
  - EGL Generation Guide
    The EGL Generation Guide covers the process of converting EGL code to Java™ or COBOL source code, including the processes and the files involved. This section is intended for a developer who will generate or deploy EGL applications.
  - EGL Language Reference
    The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
    - General syntax
    - System data parts
    - User-defined data parts
    - Logic parts
    - Correspondence between a JSON string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to a JavaScript™ Object Notation (JSON) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromJSON() and serviceLib.convertToJSON()) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert JSON data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service. A failure in either function causes a RuntimeException.
    - Correspondence between a JSON string and an EGL variable for zOS and IBM i
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) string. This topic describes the functions—serviceLib.convertFromJSON() and serviceLib.convertToJSON()—that are used by an EGL developer to convert JSON data to or from a variable either for zOS or IBM i systems. A failure in either function causes a RuntimeException.
    - Special considerations for JSON support on IBM i:
    - Correspondence between an XML string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to an Extensible Markup Language (XML) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromXML and serviceLib.convertToXML) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert XML data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service.
    - EGL statements
    - EGL core system libraries and variables
      - EGL library dateTimeLib
        The date and time system functions and variables let you manipulate and retrieve the system date and time in a variety of formats.
      - EGL library JavaLib
        The javaLib library access local Java® objects and classes through your generated Java™ code.
      - EGL library lobLib
        The lobLib system library provides support functions for large objects (BLOB and CLOB types).
      - EGL library logLib
        The logLib utility offers a set of logging functions that support multiple log levels DEBUG, ERROR, INFO, TRACE and WARN. These functions are designed to help developers effectively monitor, debug, and trace the behavior of EGL applications during execution.
      - EGL library mathLib
        The EGL mathLib functions perform common mathematical and trigonometric functions.
      - EGL library serviceLib
        The serviceLib functions get and set service variable information.
      - EGL library strLib
        The strLib functions manipulate and convert data to and from STRING variables and format date/time variables.
        Default formats in COBOL
        System variables in strLib contain default values for COBOL generation.
        booleanAsString()
        byteLen()
        The strLib.byteLen() system function returns the number of bytes in a variable, excluding any trailing spaces and null values.
        characterLen()
        charAsInt()
        EGL maintains the strLib.charAsInt() system function for compatibility with I4GL.
        charAt()
        clip()
        concatenateStrings()
        contains()
        contentEquals()
        defaultDateFormat (EGL system variable)
        The strLib.defaultDateFormat system variable specifies a pattern that EGL uses to convert a DATE type to text and a text type to DATE.
        defaultMoneyFormat (EGL system variable)
        The strLib.defaultMoneyFormat system variable specifies the default pattern that EGL uses to convert a MONEY variable to text.
        defaultNumericFormat (EGL system variable)
        The strLib.defaultNumericFormat system variable specifies one of several patterns that can be used to convert a numeric variable to text.
        defaultTimeFormat (EGL system variable)
        The strLib.defaultTimeFormat system variable specifies one of several possible patterns that EGL uses to convert a TIME type to text.
        defaultTimestampFormat (EGL system variable)
        The strLib.defaultTimestampFormat system variable specifies one of several patterns that EGL uses to create the string that the strLib.formatTimestamp() function returns.
        endsWith()
        equals()
        equalsIgnoreCase()
        formatDate()
        formatNumber()
        The strLib.formatNumber() system function returns a number as a formatted string.
        formatTime()
        The strLib.formatTime() system function accepts a TIME value as input and returns a STRING value.
        formatTimestamp()
        The strLib.formatTimestamp() system function accepts a TIMESTAMP value as input and returns a STRING value.
        getNextToken()
        The strLib.getNextToken() system function searches a substring for a token and copies that token to a target item.
        getTokenCount()
        The strLib.getTokenCount() system function returns the number of tokens in a source string.
        indexOf()
        intAsChar()
        EGL maintains the strLib.intAsChar() system function for compatibility with I4GL.
        intAsUnicode()
        isEmpty()
        isMatch()
        join()
        lastIndexOf()
        length()
        lowerCase()
        lowerCaseChar()
        replaceAll()
        replaceFirst()
        replaceSubStr()
        setBlankTerminator()
        setNullTerminator()
        The strLib.setNullTerminator() system function changes all trailing spaces in a string to null values.
        spaces()
        split()
        startsWith()
        subSequence()
        subString()
        unicodeAsInt()
        upperCase()
        upperCaseChar()
      - EGL library sysLib
        The sysLib system library contains miscellaneous functions and one variable.
      - sysVar system variable
        The sysVar system variable holds a variety of values.
      - EGL library XMLLib
        This topic describes the XMLLib functions and variable definitions.
    - Accessing data in EGL
      Whenever you access a data store in EGL, the data goes into a record.
    - Applications with user interfaces
    - VisualAge® Generator compatibility
    - Appendices
    - Importing product-supplied projects
      You can click a link to download the current version of Rich UI projects. The capability is useful if you deleted a project or want a clean version.
  - Rational® COBOL Runtime Guide for zSeries®
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering the IBM® Rational® COBOL Runtime.
  - IBM Business Developer EGL Server Guide for IBM® i
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering EGL Server for IBM® i on the host.
  - Generation for VSE Feature Reference
    This reference manual provides z/VSE-specific information about developing and generating EGL programs in the VSE environment.
- Source code analysis with code review
  With code review, you can create configurations of coding rules for EGL source code. You can then run the configurations to check the source code for consistency with the rules.
- Responsive Design Support in IBD
  What is Responsive Design? Responsive design is an approach for creation of web pages that automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed. So, instead of designing multiple websites for different devices with variable screen sizes, we can design just one website that scales up or down automatically, to match the device it’s being viewed on.
- Containerizing an EGL RUI Application
Samples
Troubleshooting and support
EGL runtime error messages
Reference
Glossary
Using the help
Notices for IBM Business Developer documentation

characterLen()

The strLib.characterLen() system function returns the number of characters in a text expression, excluding any trailing spaces. In contrast, strLib.byteLen() returns the number of bytes rather than the number of characters. See the example later in this topic.

Syntax

  strLib.characterLen(source STRING in)
  returns (result INT)

source: Input can be any variable or expression that is assignment compatible with the STRING type (see "Assignment compatibility in EGL").
result: A variable defined as an INT.

Example

  myUnicode5 UNICODE(5) = "ABC";
  length INT;

  length = strLib.byteLen(myUnicode5); // length=6
  length = strLib.characterLen(myUnicode5); // length=3