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BIF to trim leading 0's or any character

P Strip           b
D Strip           pi           256a   varying
D   string                     256a   const varying
D   char                       256a   const varying options(*nopass)
D i               s             10i 0
D ch              s            256a   varying inz('0')
 /free
    // default to '0' if second parm not specified
    if %parms >= 2;
       ch = char;
    endif;

    // locate first char not equal to strip char
    i = %check(ch:string);
    if i = 0;
       return '';
    endif;
    return %subst(string:i);
 /end-free
P Strip           e

By default, this strips leading zeros. But if you specify an optional second parameter to the procedure, you can strip off any other characters you want.

Although this is written using the new V5R1 syntax, (and compiled and tested on a V5R1 machine) this should be easy to rewite to run on a V4R4 system.

Examples of use:
  Strip('0000123')        ===> '123'
  Strip('****456':'*')    ===> '456'
  Strip('$***456':'*$')   ===> '456'

Cheers! Hans

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