Trim Characters

The Trim Characters processor trims string or string array attributes down to a set number of characters - taken from the left, the middle, or the right of the original value, according to the specified Options.

The result of the trim is output as an additional attribute.

Use Trim Characters to truncate a text value down to a set number of characters. For example, you may be manipulating your data prior to matching, and may want to create a new matching cluster which comprises the first few characters of one attribute, and the last few characters of another. In this case, you would use Trim Characters twice - once to take the first few characters of one attribute, and again to take the last few characters of another.

If you want to perform exactly the same trim operation on more than one attribute, you may do this in a single use of the Trim Characters processor.

The following table describes the configuration options:

Configuration	Description
Inputs	Specify any String or String Array type attributes that you want to trim to a set number of characters. Number and Date attributes are not valid inputs, as they do not have a single standard text representation. If you want to trim a Date or Number attribute, you must first convert the data type to String with a standard representation (for example, DD/MM/YYYY for a date) using Convert Number to String or Convert Date to String. Note that if you input an Array attribute, the transformation will apply to all array elements, and an Array attribute will be output.
Options	Specify the following options: `Length of result`: the number of characters that you want to retain after trimming. Specified as a Number. Default value: `1`. `Start position`: the start position for the trim operation, counted either from the left or the right of the value, in characters. The value of `1` means the first character, if counting from the left, or the last character if counting from the right. Note that whitespace and control characters are included in this count, and should therefore be removed if you do not want to consider them. Specified as a Number. Default value: `1`. `From left or right`: determines how the start position for the trim is determined; that is, counting a number of characters to retain from either the left or the right of the value. Specified as a Selection (Left/Right). Default value: `Left`.
Outputs	Describes any data attribute or flag attribute outputs.
Data Attributes	The following data attributes are output: `Substring`: the attribute value, trimmed using the options specified.
Flags	None.

The Trim Characters transformer presents no summary statistics on its processing.

In the Data view, each input attribute is shown with its new derived attribute with numbers stripped to the right.

Output Filters

None.

Example

In this example, the Trim Characters processor is used to return the day portion (the first two characters) of the DT_PURCHASED attribute of the Customers table.

Note that the DT_PURCHASED attribute is in this case already stored as a String attribute. A DATE attribute may be converted to String using the Convert Date to String processor, if required.

The following shows the results of the transformation:

DT_PURCHASED	DT_PURCHASED.Substring
03/01/2000	03
06/01/2000	06
10/01/2000	10
14/01/2000	14
16/01/2000	16
16/01/2000	16
23/01/2000	23
23/01/2000	23