Crystal reports: is there a way to regex in crysta

Question

I have a crystal report function which requires me to trim off characters which start with a "-" and delete the rest following the the "-" (dash).

For example, I would have order number 00000112345-C43-PJ.

How would I just trim off everything from the right of the "-" get the result as 00000112345?

I looked for a regex and substring but crystal doesn't seem to have these functions available.

Answer 1

Crystal might not have regex but it certainly has all the basic string functions

Something like this should do it for you (not tested):

Left({OrderNumber}, InStr({OrderNumber}, "-") - 1) 

Answer 2

I've recently added a regex library here:- https://sourceforge.net/projects/cruflregex/files/

It's a bit minimal, but might be of use to someone.

Answer 3

I just posted this over on the SAP Community Network.

http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports/blog/2013/01/31/regular-expressions-within-a-crystal-report

This certainly won't work for everyone, but it is an option.

Noel

Answer 4

This hasn't been a feature in Crystal reports for a while. I heard it might be a feature in the latest crystal reports (16?). Check out their website and give them a call, they shouldn't charge for a pre-sales question.

Another approach you could take to this is to manually process the value and validate it using the string and isvalue functions, etc. Messier, but it might be a backup option.