On Wed, 7 Jun 2000 11:13:04 -0400, Ted Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Thus it was written in the epistle of Benji York,
>>
>> Not to start a language war :), but after seeing the code in COBOL and
>> PowerHouse to grab the last four characters from a string, I thought I'd
>> just throw out the Pythonic way:
>>
>> lastFour = myString[-4:]
>>
>> Python uses the idea of string slicing (much like several other
languages),
>> but has some nice things like being able to use negative numbers to
>> represent "from the end".
>
>And, of course, Perl's contribution:
>
>$last_four = substr($my_string,-4);
>
>Ted
======================================================================
Ah, but remember, the original post was not asking for a solution from any
langauge except COBOL.  So why answer with a solution from Perl, Python or
Powerhouse.  I know all four languages, but simply answered the man's
question.  By the way, how would you do it in RPG? PL1? SPL? C++? FORTRAN?
PASCAL? JAVA? (Is JAVA a language?  Is a PC a real computer?)

Randy Keefer, Consultant

PS.  Obviously, all opinions expressed are my own and do not represent
those of Hughes Network Systems or any of its employees.
>--
>Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Sys, Southern Adventist University
>          ==========================================================
>There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater
>importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or
our
>relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their
>solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of
>science.
>                                           -- Gauss, Karl Friedrich
(1777-1855)
>          ==========================================================
>         Deep thoughts to be found at http://www.southern.edu/~ashted