charactertolong

Coerces values of type character to values of NCL type long (deprecated; use tolong).

Prototype

	function charactertolong (
		char_val  : character   
	)

	return_val [dimsizes(char_val)] :  long

Arguments

A character variable of any dimension.

Return value

The returned value has the same dimensionality as the input variable char_val.

Description

This function converts an ASCII character (or characters) to its decimal equivalent and returns that as an NCL long. For example, conversion of the ASCII character 'a' yields the value 97 as an NCL long.

Note: this function and other xxxtolong functions have been superceded by tolong.

This function performs coercion that is not automatically available through the NCL grammar. See the section on coercion of types for details on NCL's automatic type conversions.

The function chartolong is identical to this function, and can be used if you don't want to use the full charactertolong name. This alias name is included just for people who don't like to type (or like the shorter names).

Attributes, with the exception of _FillValue, are not propagated by the conversion functions. See Example 2 below.

Special considerations apply to how missing values are handled in the conversion functions. See Example 2.

See Also

totype, tolong, toulong, toint64

Examples

Example 1

Convert an ASCII 'A' to its decimal equivalent expressed as an NCL long value.

begin
  ch = integertocharacter (65)  
  print(ch)                    ; Prints the ASCII character A.
  db = charactertolong(ch)
  print (db)                   ; Prints long precision 65.
end

Shows how missing values are handled.

begin
;
;  Conversion does not preserve attributes, except missing value.
;  A character missing value is converted to its ASCII equivalent
;  and that converted to a long when a character missing value
;  is propagated to a long variable.
;
  a = new(3,character)
  a = (/integertocharacter(66), integertocharacter(67), integertocharacter(68)/)
  a@T = "string"
  a@_FillValue = integertocharacter(65)
  b = charactertolong(a)
  print (b)
  delete(a)
  delete(b)
;
;  If the target variable has no missing value
;  specified and the original variable does, the missing 
;  value of the target variable inherits the missing value of the
;  original variable and the missing values
;  of the original variable are retained in
;  the target variable.
;
  a = new(3,character)
  a = (/integertocharacter(66), integertocharacter(67), integertocharacter(65)/)
  a@_FillValue = integertocharacter(65)
  b = charactertolong(a)
  print (b)
  delete(a)
  delete(b)
;
;  If the target variable has a missing
;  value specified and the original variable
;  has a missing value specified, the missing
;  value of the target variable is retained
;  even when the missing value of the original 
;  variable is in the range of the type of the 
;  target variable.  Missing values in the
;  original variable are converted to the 
;  missing value of the target variable.
;
  a = new(3,character)
  a = (/integertocharacter(66), integertocharacter(67), integertocharacter(65)/)
  a@_FillValue = integertocharacter(65)
  b = new(3,long,80)
  b = charactertolong(a)
  print (b)
  delete(a)
  delete(b)
end