CENTER( )

Topic group Related topics

Returns a character string that contains a string centered in a line of specified length.

Syntax

CENTER(<expC> [, <length expN> [, <pad expC> ]])

<expC>

The text to center.

<length expN>

The length of the resulting line of text. The default is 80 characters.

<pad expC>

The single character to pad the string with if <length expN> is greater than the number of characters in <expC>. If <length expN> is equal to or less than the number of characters in <expC>, <pad expC> is ignored.

If <pad expC> is more than one character, CENTER( ) uses only the first character. If <pad expC> isn't specified, CENTER( ) pads with spaces.

Description

CENTER( ) returns a character expression with the requisite number of leading and trailing spaces to center it in a line that is a specified number of characters wide.

To create the resulting string, CENTER( ) performs the following steps.

Subtracts the length of <expC> or <memo field> from <length expN>

Divides the result in half and rounds up if necessary

Pads <expC> on either side with that number of spaces or the first character in <pad expC>

If the length of <expC> or <memo field> is greater than <length expN>, CENTER( ) does the following:

Subtracts <length expN> from the length of <expC>

Divides the result in half and rounds up if necessary

Truncates both sides of <expC> by that many characters

When the result of subtracting the length of <expC> from <length expN> is an odd number, CENTER( ) pads one less space on the left if the difference is positive, or truncates one less character on the left if the difference is negative.