Tranlate didn't work in semicolon?

[ybz12003]

Hello,

I ran a code to change the 'forwardslash' and 'semicolon' to 'comma.'    I found all of the columns are working, except one cell is '3 CRANIOTOMIES; HYPOSPADIAS.'  

Name=strip(compbl(translate(Disease,',','/;'))); 

The 'semicolon' between ''3 CRANIOTOMIES' and 'HYPOSPADIAS' didn't change to 'comma', but 'space' instead.  I can't figure out why, and how to fix it.  Please help, thank you.

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

If you want to change both / and ; to , you would use

Name=strip(compbl(translate(Disease,',,','/;'))); 

The number of characters in the "to" list have to match the number in the "from" list. Otherwise you get "default" .

From the documentation:

Under Windows, you do not have to specify a pair of arguments that consist of a to argument and a from argument. However, if you do not use pairs, you must supply a comma as a placeholder. If to has fewer characters than from, TRANSLATE changes the extra from characters to blanks. If to has more characters than from, TRANSLATE ignores the extra to characters.

[ybz12003]

Thank you!