Contributed by Sam Cox:

In my work I deal with 27-digit serial numbers consisting of a number of fixed-length, non-delimited fields. Wanting to break such serial number strings into their several fields, I wrote this general purpose field extraction subroutine:

SUBROUTINE CODE :

:getFields
strparse "[getFieldPos]" "," "[fieldPos]" "[fieldPosCount]"
strparse "[getFieldName]" "," "[fieldName]" "[fieldNameCount]"
if "[fieldPosCount]" "<>" "[fieldNameCount]"
alertbox "error" "fieldNameCount ([fieldnamecount]) <> fieldPosCount ([fieldposcount])"
return
else
loop "1" "[fieldPosCount]" "[n]"
strparse "[fieldPos[n]]" "-" "[p]" "[unused]"
substr "[getFieldSource]" "[p1]" "[p2]-[p1]+1" "[[fieldName[n]]]"
endloop
endif
return

I might use it like this:

setvar "[sn]" "E70886680744110520041400031"
gosub "snParse"
.returns useful results in [sn.pn][sn.edc][sn.sc][sn.dom][sn.yyyy][sn.ww][sn.seq]

where the :snParse subroutine defines the fields and variable names. Notice that for my purposes, I am extracting overlapping fields. Look at the definitions of the [sn.dom] and [sn.yyyy]+[sn.ww] fields.

:snParse
setvar "[getFieldSource]" "[sn]"
setvar "[getFieldPos]" "1-10,11-14,15-16,17-22,17-20,21-22,23-27"
setvar "[getFieldName]" "sn.pn,sn.edc,sn.sc,sn.dom,sn.yyyy,sn.ww,sn.seq"
gosub "getFields"
.
.additional work here to validate [sn]'s fields
.
return

Here's another version of 'getFields' without the error checking and with shorter interval variable names:

SUBROUTINE CODE:

:getFields
strparse "[getFieldPos]" "," "[:fp]" "[:fpc]"
strparse "[getFieldName]" "," "[:fn]" "[:unused]"
loop "1" "[:fpc]" "[:n]"
strparse "[:fp[:n]]" "-" "[]" "[:unused]"
substr "[getFieldSource]" "[1]" "[2]-[1]+1" "[[:fn[:n]]]"
endloop
return

Type something in the First Box and so on.. watch how it jumps from one Edit Box to the next. The Code responsible is located inside each textEntry Box and a SubRoutine called :Focused.

Download it here.

If you have code you use frequently, create a subroutine for it. Then, whenever you need it, use the Gosub action. It is available under the Control category in the Actions List in the SubRoutine Access section.