String Formats

String formats refer to the formatting of text. You can use the following symbols to specify a string format.

Symbol

Description

!

Formatting must proceed from right to left

<

Following characters will be converted to lowercase

>

Following characters will be converted to uppercase

@

Placeholder for a mandatory character

&

Placeholder for an optional character

Normally, character string formatting proceeds by scanning the character string value and the format specification from left to right. However, if the format specification contains a “!” symbol, then scanning of both the character string value and the format specification proceeds from right to left.

Examples

Value

Format

Result

forms

> FORMS
FormS < forms
forms <@> fORMS
forms <@@> foRMS
forms !>@< FORMs
forms !>@<@@@> FoRMS
forms &&&&&“data” formsdata
forms @@@@@“data” forms data

The @ symbols are replaced by spaces when there is no corresponding character in the string value.