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A-Shell Reference

Updated May 2021

The .VALX(a$) function is an extended version of the traditional VAL(). It supports all of the same behavior, plus it automatically skips over any amount of non-numeric text preceding the number, and also recognizes common types of numeric formatting such as thousands separators, currency symbols, and parentheses for negatives. This makes it particularly handy for importing values from spreadsheets and reading numeric cells in XTREE.

Examples

Expression

val(expr)

.valx(expr)

Notes

123

123

123

 

123

123

123

leading spaces

-123 US

-123

-123

leading minus and spaces

$123

0

123

leading non-digits

-$123.45

0

-123.45

leading -$

123,456.78

123

123456.78

thousands separators

($1,234.56)

0

-1234.56

parentheses for neg

price: (USD) 0.99

0

0.99

(USD) ignored (non-numeric)

&h0200

512

512

&h for hex

&O0200

128

128

&o for octal

hex flags: &h0200

0

512

leading text

hex flags: 0x0200

0

512

0x for hex

octal flags: o0200

0

128

0o for octal

binary flags: 0b10110

0

22

0b for binary

&b1010101010101010

0

43690

&b for binary

 

History

2021 April, A-Shell 6.5.1702:  Add function to A-Shell.