# Eliminating Double Spaces in alpha **URL:** \ **Category:** Forum\ **Tags:** Adabas-Natural, Natural, Natural-on-Linux\ **Created:** [July 23, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/eliminating-double-spaces-in-alpha/204752 "2019-07-23T18:12:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jared\_Lenos](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/jared_lenos/32/1308_2.png) [@Jared\_Lenos](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Jared_Lenos)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/eliminating-double-spaces-in-alpha/204752/1 "2019-07-23T18:12:56Z")
I have an (largely) formatting issue that I would like to solve in a neat way if possible. When using a natural date format, I sometimes want to display it natively as a ‘nice’ date. I can use the edit-mask properties to do some manipulation on the date format to get it to specific string representations. That is great. Recently I was asked to present the date in the format ‘Weekday Month DD, YYYY’. I can do this with: ```auto define data local 01 #date-alpha (a8) 01 #date (d) 01 #date-print (a30) end-define #date-alpha := *datn move edited #date-alpha to #date(em=yyyymmdd) move edited #date(EM=N(9)' 'L(10)^DD','^YYYY) to #date-print print #date-print end ``` However, when the date is early in the month, the ^DD result appears as ‘08’ which is not pretty. So I’ve replaced it with ```auto move edited #date(EM=N(9)' 'L(10)^ZD','^YYYY) to #date-print ``` which now results in the 0 being replaced with a blank character. Now I’m left with the task of eliminating this character from the string. ```auto examine #date-print for ' ' replace ' ' ``` was my first attempt, however, the double space is simply recognized as a blank string array. Similarly, H’2020’ also resulted in no observable change. I could create a more complex set of statements to solve this for this specific case: ```auto define data local 01 #date-alpha (a8) 01 #date (d) 01 #date-print (a30) 01 #pos (i4) 01 #len (i4) 01 #i (i4) 01 #is-space (L) end-define #date-alpha := *datn move edited #date-alpha to #date(em=yyyymmdd) move edited #date(EM=N(9)' 'L(10)^ZD','^YYYY) to #date-print examine #date-print for ' ' giving length #len for #i = 1 to #len #pos := #len - #i + 1 examine substring(#date-print, #i, #pos) for ' ' giving position #pos if #pos = 1 if #is-space = true #pos := #len - #i + 1 examine substring(#date-print, #i, #pos) for ' ' delete examine #date-print for ',2' replace ', 2' /* fix for the year space as it gets caught in the remaining string else #is-space := true end-if else #is-space := false end-if end-for print #date-print end ``` I feel like there should be a universal, simple method to eliminate a double space in a string within Natural. Would anyone care to elaborate? Maybe a simpler version of the per-character for loop which spits each element into a new string only if the previous one wasn’t a space? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Scott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@Chad\_Scott](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Chad_Scott)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:47pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/eliminating-double-spaces-in-alpha/204752/2 "2019-07-23T18:47:27Z")
What you were using to eliminate the double space is close, just need to use the FULL option: EXAMINE #DATE-PRINT for FULL ’ ’ replace ’ ’ ---
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Spichtinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Helmut\_Spichtinger](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Helmut_Spichtinger)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 11:30am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/eliminating-double-spaces-in-alpha/204752/3 "2019-07-25T11:30:26Z")
An additional statement EXAMINE … REPLACE … is not necessary, when you use an appropriate EM depending on whether there is a leading 0 in the day number. ```auto DEFINE DATA LOCAL 01 #DATE-ALPHA (A8) 01 REDEFINE #DATE-ALPHA 02 #YYYYMM (A6) 02 #D1 (N1) /* is the value 0 ? 02 #D2 (A1) 01 #DATE (D) 01 #DATE-PRINT (A30) END-DEFINE * #DATE-ALPHA := '20190509' MOVE EDITED #DATE-ALPHA TO #DATE(EM=YYYYMMDD) * IF #D1 NE 0 MOVE EDITED #DATE(EM=N(9)' 'L(10)^DD','^YYYY) TO #DATE-PRINT ELSE MOVE EDITED #DATE(EM=N(9)' 'L(10)ZD','^YYYY) TO #DATE-PRINT END-IF PRINT #DATE-PRINT END ``` ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/3X/c/d/cd19967bb605d28a72d77eb83a1cae22f3df2eb8.svg) [@system](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/eliminating-double-spaces-in-alpha/204752/4 "2021-04-02T15:43:11Z")