Shorten or truncate a field

You can use the USER_SYM_SUBROUTINE subroutine with the TRUNCATE argument in a complex User Symbolic to shorten the data displayed to a certain number of characters for a specified field.

Subroutine name

USER_SYM_SUBROUTINE

Subroutine argument

TRUNCATE

Field type

All fields

Example of use

You could restrict your Brief Description field in reports to 100 characters.

Argument syntax and parameters

The subroutine is a piece of code that uses ‘arguments’. An argument is a set of options that tells the subroutine what to do. The argument parameters are commonly separated by an exclamation mark.

The TRUNCATE subroutine argument structure is:

TRUNCATE!arg2!arg3

Example of subroutine argument

This argument will truncate the Brief Description field in the Object file after 45 characters.

TRUNCATE!BRIEF_DESC!45

What the argument parameters mean

Argument parameter	Required or optional?	Explanation
arg2	Required	Internal field name of field to be truncated.
arg3	Required	Number of characters to truncate at.