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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC>
<html>
<title>Xbase DBMS Chapter 5</title>
<body bgcolor=#FFFFFF>
<h1><p align="center">Expression Handling<br></h1>
<p align="center">Chapter Updated 12/26/22</p><hr>

<h3>Overview</h3>

The main objective of this chapter is to provide information regarding the
basic concepts of using the Xbase64 Expression module.<br><br>

The Xbase64 library includes an expression parsing routine which assists 
application programmers by providing a high level data manipulation tool and 
also allows for building complex index keys.

The functions included were derived from dBASE III Plus, dBASE IV and Clipper.
<br><br>
Expressions are primarily used for index key definitions and filter criteria, but
can also be used for other tasks as well.
<br><br>

<h3>Internal fuctioning</h3>
The expression module works in two phases.  Firstly, method 
<em>ParseExpression</em> is called and builds an expression tree from 
all the components of the expression. The tree is made up of individual 
nodes. The expression is checked for valid field names, literals, 
operands and functions.  Any field references are resolved.  If fields 
are used in an expression and the database name for the field is not 
included in the name with the -> operand, the routines assume the 
associated database has been successfully opened. 
<br><br>
Secondly, method <em>ProcessExpression</em> is called to process the 
expression tree created by ParseExpression().  The routine parses each 
node in the expression tree, executing functions, processing operands 
and manipulating data to produce the desired result.<br><br>

If an expression will be processed repeatedly, it is best to pre-parse the
tree using <em>ParseExpression</em>, then for each new call to the expression, 
execute method <em>ProcessExpression</em> which processes the tree. 

<h3>Expression Return Types</h3>
Expressions will return a type of CHAR, NUMERIC, DATE or LOGICAL.<br><br> 

An expression return type can be determined with method <em>
GetExpressionResultType</em> after parsing it.<br><br>

Expressions returning a return type of CHAR are limited to a 200 byte internal 
buffer.  There is also a 100 byte limit for NDX and MDX index key support.  If 
the 200 byte limit is not large enough for your application, adjust field
<em>enum { WorkBufMaxLen = 200 };</em> in file <em>exp.h</em>.

<br><br>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>Return Type</th><th>XBase Type</th></tr>
<tr><td>CHAR</td><td>xbString</td></tr>
<tr><td>NUMERIC</td><td>xbDouble</td></tr>
<tr><td>DATE</td><td>xbDate</td></tr>
<tr><td>LOGICAL</td><td>xbBool</td></tr>
</table>

<br><br>
Date routines return an xbDate result. In addition, the date value can be 
extracted using GetStringResult() which returns YYYYMMDD or GetDoubleResult() 
which returns a julian value.

<br><br>
<h3>Expression Functions</h3>
Each expression function also has a corresponding C++ function.  It is
slightly more efficient to call the C++ functions directly, rather than 
execute the expression parsing routines.<br><br>

To add a new function, find a function that is similar to what you need, copy
the code and modify xbxbase.h, xbfuncs.cpp, xbexp.cpp and xb_test_expression.cpp.<br><br>


<table border=1>
<tr><th>Function Name</th><th>Return Type</th><th>Description</th></tr>
<tr><td>ABS</td><td>N</td><td>Calculate absolute value of numeric expression</td></tr>
<tr><td>ALLTRIM</td><td>C</td><td>Trim leading andtrailing whitespace from a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>ASC</td><td>N</td><td>Return ASCII code for first character in a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>AT</td><td>N</td><td>Return starting position of a string within a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>CDOW</td><td>C</td><td>Retun character weekday name for a date</td></tr>
<tr><td>CHR</td><td>C</td><td>Convert numeric expression to a character</td></tr>
<tr><td>CMONTH</td><td>C</td><td>Return month name for a date</td></tr>
<tr><td>CTOD</td><td>D</td><td>Return date from a character date input</td></tr>
<tr><td>DATE</td><td>D</td><td>Return system date</td></tr>
<tr><td>DAY</td><td>N</td><td>Return the day of the month from a date</td></tr>
<tr><td>DEL</td><td>C</td><td>Return record deletion status for a record</td></tr>
<tr><td>DELETED</td><td>L</td><td>Return record deletion status for a record<</td></tr>
<tr><td>DESCEND</td><td>1</td><td>Clipper DESCEND function</td></tr>
<tr><td>DOW</td><td>N</td><td>Return number of day of week</td></tr>
<tr><td>DTOC</td><td>C</td><td>Return character date from input date</td></tr>
<tr><td>DTOS</td><td>C</td><td>Return character CCYYMMDD date from input date</td></tr>
<tr><td>EXP</td><td>N</td><td>Return exponent value</td></tr>
<tr><td>IIF</td><td>C</td><td>Immediate If</td></tr>
<tr><td>INT</td><td>N</td><td>Convert number to integer, truncate any decimals</td></tr>
<tr><td>ISALPHA</td><td>L</td><td>Check if string begins with alpha character</td></tr>
<tr><td>ISLOWER</td><td>L</td><td>Check if string begins with lower case alpha character</td></tr>
<tr><td>ISUPPER</td><td>L</td><td>Check if string begins with upper case character</td></tr>
<tr><td>LEFT</td><td>C</td><td>Return left characters from a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>LEN</td><td>N</td><td>Return lenght of string</td></tr>
<tr><td>LOG</td><td>N</td><td>Calculate logarithm</td></tr>
<tr><td>LOWER</td><td>C</td><td>Convert upper case to lower case</td></tr>
<tr><td>LTRIM</td><td>C</td><td>Trim left side of a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>MAX</td><td>N</td><td>Return higher of two values</td></tr>
<tr><td>MIN</td><td>N</td><td>Return lesser of two values</td></tr>
<tr><td>MONTH</td><td>N</td><td>Return number of month for a given date</td></tr>
<tr><td>RECNO</td><td>N</td><td>Return current rec number for a given table</td></tr>
<tr><td>RECCOUNT</td><td>N</td><td>Return number of records in a given table</td></tr>
<tr><td>REPLICATE</td><td>C</td><td>Repeat character expression N times</td></tr>
<tr><td>RIGHT</td><td>C</td><td>Return right characters from as tring</td></tr>
<tr><td>RTRIM</td><td>C</td><td>Trim right side of string</td></tr>
<tr><td>SPACE</td><td>C</td><td>Generate a string of N spaces</td></tr>
<tr><td>SQRT</td><td>N</td><td>Calculate square root</td></tr>
<tr><td>STOD</td><td>D</td><td>Convert 8 byte CCYYMMDD date to date</td></tr>
<tr><td>STR</td><td>C</td><td>Convert number to character string</td></tr>
<tr><td>STRZERO</td><td>C</td><td>Convert number to character string with leading zeroes. Clipper Function.</td></tr>
<tr><td>SUBSTR</td><td>C</td><td>Extract portion oif one string from another string</td></tr>
<tr><td>TRIM</td><td>C</td><td>Trim left and right sides of a string</td></tr>
<tr><td>UPPER</td><td>C</td><td>Conver lower case to upper case</td></tr>
<tr><td>VAL</td><td>N</td><td>Convert numeric characters to number</td></tr>
<tr><td>YEAR</td><td>N</td><td>Return year for a given date</td></tr>
</table>

<br><br>
<h3>Expression Components</h3>
Expressions are made up of one or more tokens.  A token is one of literal, 
database field, operand or function.  Literals are either numeric or character.
Character literals are enclosed in 'single' or "double" quotes.  numeric 
literals are a series of one or more contiguous numerals, ".", "+" or "-'".
<br><br>
A field is simply a field name in the default database, or is in the form
of database->fieldname.  


<br><br>
<h3>Expression Literals</h3>

<table border=1>
<tr><th>Type</th><th>Example</th></tr>
<tr><td>CHAR</td><td>"literal" or 'literal'</td></tr>
<tr><td>NUMERIC</td><td>+99999.99</td></tr>
<tr><td>DATE</td><td>{10/07/60} or {02/09/1989}</td></tr>
</table>

<br><br>
<h3>Expression Operators</h3>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>Type</th><th>Operator</th><th>Precedence</th><th>Result</th><th>Notes</th></tr>
<tr><td>Parens</td><td>()</td><td>12</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>+ (unary)</td><td>11</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>- (unary)</td><td>11</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>--X</td><td>10</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>++X</td><td>10</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>**</td><td>9</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>^</td><td>9</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>%</td><td>8</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>*</td><td>8</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>/</td><td>8</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>+ Addition</td><td>7</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>- Subtraction</td><td>7</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>X--</td><td>6</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr><td>Numeric Operator</td><td>X++</td><td>6</td><td>N</td></tr>
<tr></tr>
<tr><td>String Operator</td><td>+</td><td>5</td><td>C</td><td>Concatonate 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>String Operator</td><td>-</td><td>5</td><td>C</td><td>Concatonate 2</td></tr>
<tr></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>=</td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>#, <>, !=</td><td>4</td><td?L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td><</td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>></td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td><=</td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>>=</td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>$</td><td>4</td><td>L</td><td>N,C,D</td></tr>
<tr><td>Relational Operator</td><td>==</td><td></td><td></td><td>Clipper operator, not implemented yet</td></tr>
<tr></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>NOT</td><td>3</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>.NOT.</td><td>3</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>AND</td><td>2</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>.AND.</td><td>2</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>OR</td><td>1</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
<tr><td>Logical Operator</td><td>.OR.</td><td>1</td><td>L</td><td>Evaluated after all math and relational operators</td></tr>
</table>

<br><br>
<h3>Example Expressions</h3>
<li>CUSTOMERS->LNAME + ", " + CUSTOMERS->FNAME
<li>LNAME + ", " + FNAME
<li>STARTDT + 90
<li>DATE() - 7
<li>YEAR( TODAY() )
<li>IIF( "A" = "N", "true result", "false result" )
<li>IIF( "A" = "N" .OR. 2 > 1 , "true result", "false result" )
<li>IIF( .NOT. "A" = "N", "true result", "false result" )
<li>.NOT. DELETED()
<br><br>


<h3>Example program</h3>
For an example on how to use the expression logic, see program 
<em>src/examples/xb_ex_expression.cpp</em>.
<br><br>

<hr>
<p><img src="xbase.jpg"><br><hr>
</BODY>
</HTML>