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Anonymous
Not applicable

alt fun?

Hi i am fully confused with

can any one explain me with simple examples and

in how many ways we will use alt function?

4 Replies
buzzy996
Master II
Master II

alt( case1 [ , case2 , case3 , ...] , otherwise )

The alt function returns the first of the parameters that has a valid

number representation. If no such match is found, the last parameter

will be returned. Any number of parameters can be used.

Example:

alt( date#( dat,'YYYY/MM/DD' ),

date#( dat,'MM/DD/YYYY' ),

date#( dat,'MM/DD/YY' ),

'No valid date' )

will test if the variable dat contains a date according to any of the

three specified date formats. If so, it will return the original string

and a valid number representation of a date. If no match is found,

the text 'No valid

Nagaraju_KCS
Specialist III
Specialist III

HI,


Example:

Alt('ABC',12,13,'jkl')

Here it will return 12,

Alt() function returns first numeric value.... If you don't have any numeric value,

it will return last parameter (Means last string)

Example:

Alt('ABC', 'KL', 'NM', 'Comm')

returns Comm

Here, we don't have any numeric value, that's why return last parameter...

Hope it Helps...

Digvijay_Singh

One of the critical use is, when you are not sure your expression may or may not result NULL value, and you want to avoid null and consider 0 for such unavoidable cases. So we use Alt(<expression>,0). In normal cases expression results numeric value and that will be the output of alt function but due to any unavoidable reasons(like divide by zero etc) if expression results null then 0 will be the output.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Author

hi,

Alt(case1[ , case2 , case3 , ...] , else)
The alt function returns the first of the parameters that has a valid number representation. If no such match is found, the last parameter will be returned. Any number of parameters can be used.
Example:
alt( date#( dat , 'YYYY/MM/DD' ),
date#( dat , 'MM/DD/YYYY' ),
date#( dat , 'MM/DD/YY' ),
'No valid date' )

Will test if the field date contains a date according to any of the three specified date formats. If so, it will return the original string and a valid number representation of a date. If no match is found, the text 'No valid date' will be returned (without any valid number representation).


please check below post:


Re: Alt function

Which conditional functions do you use?