String Comparisons

There are a variety of ways to compare two strings in CSPro logic. However, the way that strings are compared depends on the logic version.

The original routine to compare strings right-pads strings with space (blank) characters as necessary so that the length of the string does not factor into the comparison. This applies to comparisons using:

String comparison functions: compare and compareNoCase
String operators: =, <>, <, <=, >=, >, in, and has
Statements that can compare strings: recode and when
Other functions: List.removeIn

With logic version CSPro 8.0+, strings are compared without any padding. This is desirable for most strings, but when comparing strings against alphanumeric dictionary items, which are right-padded to match the dictionary item length, you will likely want to use the strip function when comparing strings; for example:

if BIRD_NAME = "Bobolink" then // Original logic version
if strip(BIRD_NAME) = "Bobolink" then // CSPro 8.0+ logic version

Comparison Results

The following table shows the results of string operations that are not impacted by padding and lead to the same result regardless of logic version.

Left String	Right String	compare	compareNoCase	=	<>	<	<=	>=	>
"abc"	"abc"	0	0	true	false	false	true	true	false

"abc"	"ABC"	1	0	false	true	false	false	true	true
"ABC"	"abc"	-1	0	false	true	true	true	false	false

"abc"	"abcd"	-1	-1	false	true	true	true	false	false
"abcd"	"abc"	1	1	false	true	false	false	true	true

"abc"	"xyz"	-1	-1	false	true	true	true	false	false
"xyz"	"abc"	1	1	false	true	false	false	true	true

The following table shows the results of string operations that are impacted by padding based on the logic version.

Left String	Right String	Logic Version	compare	compareNoCase	=	<>	<	<=	>=	>
"abc"	"abc "	Original	0	0	true	false	false	true	true	false
		CSPro 8.0+	-1	-1	false	true	true	true	false	false

"abc "	"abc"	Original	0	0	true	false	false	true	true	false
		CSPro 8.0+	1	1	false	true	false	false	true	true

See also: Logic Version