13.5. Miscellaneous Variables

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Purpose

These variables are generally useful.

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Interface

Name	Type	Purpose
Characters:
c	string	copyright character
tm	string	trademark character
rtm	string	registered trademark character
nbsp	string	non-breaking space
Environment:
SDF_VERSION	string	product version string (e.g. 2.000 beta1)
SDF_HOME	string	library/configuration directory
Expression formats:
FORMAT_UPPER	string	convert a string to uppercase
FORMAT_LOWER	string	convert a string to lowercase
FORMAT_FULL	string	format to a complete date-time format
FORMAT_TIME	string	format to a time only
FORMAT_DATE	string	format to a date only
FORMAT_CONCISE	string	format to a concise date only
FORMAT_YEAR	string	format to a 4-digit year

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Description

The character variables are the preferred way of including the respective symbols. A format-specific configuration file can override the default definitions of these symbols.

The environment variables can be used to find out which version of SDF is executing and where it is installed.

The expression format variables define bits of Perl code to format variables or expressions. They can be defined in a configuration file - your system adminstrator may wish to configure date formatting to suit local conventions.