INSERT( ) function

Returns the original string with specified text inserted at a specific byte location.

Syntax

INSERT(string, insert_text, location)

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
string	character	The value to insert the text into.
insert_text	character	The text to insert.
location	numeric	The character position at which to insert insert_text into the string.

Output

Character.

Examples

Basic examples

Returns "aXXXbcde":

INSERT("abcde", "XXX", 2)

Returns "XXXabcde":

INSERT("abcde", "XXX", 0)

Returns "abcdeXXX", with "XXX" inserted at byte position 6 instead of 8, because "abcde" is only 5 bytes long::

INSERT("abcde", "XXX", 8)

Remarks

How it works

The INSERT( ) function inserts specified characters or spaces into a character string, beginning at a specified position in the string.

When to use INSERT( )

Use INSERT( ) to normalize data for formatting, for duplicate matching, and for the JOIN and DEFINE RELATION commands, which require identical fields.

For example, part numbers in one file may be in the format "12345", and in another file, "12-345." In the first file, you can use INSERT( ) to insert a hyphen (-) in position 3.

Location guidelines

• If the location value is greater than the length of string, the insert_text value is inserted at the end of the string.
• If location is 0 or 1, insert_text is inserted at the beginning of the string.

Inserting double quotation marks

If you specify double quotation marks in insert_text, you must enclose them in single quotation marks.

For example: '"'