Strings

Strings in RuLA represent text values. They are enclosed in double quotes.

Creating Strings

Create a string by enclosing text in double quotes:

"Hello World"
"Customer Name"
""

An empty string ("") is valid and represents a string with no characters.

String Manipulation

Concatenation

Join strings together using + or CONCAT:

"Hello" + " " + "World"     # Results in "Hello World"
CONCAT("Hello", " World")   # Results in "Hello World"

Accessing Characters

Access individual characters by index (0-based):

"Hello"[0]      # Returns "H"
"Hello"[4]      # Returns "o"

Slicing

Extract a portion of a string:

SLICE("Hello World", 0, 5)     # Returns "Hello"
LEFT("Hello World", 5)         # Returns "Hello"
RIGHT("Hello World", 5)        # Returns "World"

Case Conversion

LOWER("Hello World")           # Returns "hello world"
UPPER("Hello World")           # Returns "HELLO WORLD"

Trimming Whitespace

TRIM("  hello  ")              # Returns "hello"
TRIM_LEFT("  hello")           # Returns "hello"

Useful String Functions

Function	Description	Example
LEN	Returns the number of characters	LEN("abc") → 3
CONCAT	Joins multiple strings	CONCAT("a", "b") → "ab"
LOWER	Converts to lowercase	LOWER("ABC") → "abc"
UPPER	Converts to uppercase	UPPER("abc") → "ABC"
TRIM	Removes whitespace from both ends	TRIM(" a ") → "a"
LEFT	First n characters	LEFT("hello", 2) → "he"
RIGHT	Last n characters	RIGHT("hello", 2) → "lo"
SLICE	Extract substring	SLICE("hello", 1, 3) → "el"
REPLACE	Replace occurrences	REPLACE("a-b", "-", "/") → "a/b"
SPLIT	Split into list	SPLIT("a,b", ",") → ["a", "b"]
STARTS_WITH	Check prefix	STARTS_WITH("abc", "ab") → True
ENDS_WITH	Check suffix	ENDS_WITH("abc", "bc") → True
JOIN	Join list into string	JOIN(["a", "b"], "-") → "a-b"
FORMAT_NUMBER	Format as string	FORMAT_NUMBER(3.14159, 2) → "3.14"
LEVENSHTEIN	Edit distance	LEVENSHTEIN("kitten", "sitting") → 3
PAD_LEFT	Pad on left	PAD_LEFT("5", 3, "0") → "005"
PAD_RIGHT	Pad on right	PAD_RIGHT("5", 3, "0") → "500"
TRIM_LEFT	Removes whitespace from start	TRIM_LEFT(" hello") → "hello"

String Comparison

Compare strings using standard operators:

"abc" = "abc"           # True (exact match)
"abc" != "def"          # True
"abc" contains "b"      # True
"abc" matches "a.*c"    # True (regex match)