unique_string

Returns a unique string given the input string as a prefix.

Prototype

	function unique_string (
		prefix_string [1] : string   
	)

	return_val [1] :  string

Arguments

A string containing the prefix name of a string that will be used for the return unique string.

Description

This function returns a unique string using the prefix_string as a prefix, and appending a unique integer counter to it. The integer counter starts at 0, and is incremented by 1 every time this function is called within a single NCL session. If prefix_string is empty, then a string with just the unique integer will be returned.

Examples

Example 1

To see how this function works, put it inside a finite loop and print out its values:

  do i=1,5
    print(unique_string("tmp"))
    print(unique_string(""))
  end do

The above code snippet will generate the following strings:

(0)     tmp0
(0)     1
(0)     tmp2
(0)     3
(0)     tmp4
(0)     5
(0)     tmp6
(0)     7
(0)     tmp8
(0)     9