System.MaskUtils.FormatMaskText
Delphi
function FormatMaskText(const EditMask: string; const Value: string ): string;
C++
extern DELPHI_PACKAGE System::UnicodeString __fastcall FormatMaskText(const System::UnicodeString EditMask, const System::UnicodeString Value);
Properties
| Type | Visibility | Source | Unit | Parent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| function | public | System.MaskUtils.pas System.MaskUtils.hpp |
System.MaskUtils | System.MaskUtils |
Description
Returns a string formatted using an edit mask.
Call FormatMaskText to apply the mask specified by the EditMask parameter to the text string specified by the Value parameter. The edit mask string consists of three fields with semicolons separating them. The first part of the mask is the mask itself. The second part is the character that determines whether the literal characters of the mask are matched to characters in the Value parameter or are inserted into the Value string. The third part of the mask is the character used to represent missing characters in the mask.
These are the special characters used in the first field of the mask:
| Character | Meaning in mask |
|---|---|
| ! | If a ! character appears in the mask, optional characters are represented in the returned string as leading blanks. If a ! character is not present, optional characters are represented in the returned string as trailing blanks. |
| > | If a > character appears in the mask, all characters that follow are in uppercase until the end of the mask or until a < character is encountered. |
| < | If a < character appears in the mask, all characters that follow are in lowercase until the end of the mask or until a > character is encountered. |
| <> | If these two characters appear together in a mask, no case checking is done and the data is formatted with the case present in the Value parameter. |
| \ | The character that follows a \ character is a literal character. Use this character to use any of the mask special characters as a literal. |
| L | The L character requires an alphabetic character only in this position. For the US, this is A-Z, a-z. |
| l | The l character permits only an alphabetic character in this position, but doesn't require it. |
| A | The A character requires an alphanumeric character only in this position. For the US, this is A-Z, a-z, 0-9. |
| a | The a character permits an alphanumeric character in this position, but doesn't require it. |
| C | The C character requires an arbitrary character in this position. |
| c | The c character permits an arbitrary character in this position, but doesn't require it. |
| 0 | The 0 character requires a numeric character only in this position. |
| 9 | The 9 character permits a numeric character in this position, but doesn't require it. |
| # | The # character permits a numeric character or a plus or minus sign in this position, but doesn't require it. |
| : | The : character is used to separate hours, minutes, and seconds in times. If the character that separates hours, minutes, and seconds is different in the regional settings of the Control Panel, that character is substituted in the returned string. |
| / | The / character is used to separate months, days, and years in dates. If the character that separates months, days, and years is different in the regional settings of the Control Panel, that character is substituted in the returned string. |
| ; | The ; character is used to separate the three fields of the mask. |
| _ | The _ character automatically inserts spaces into the returned string. |
Any character that does not appear in the preceding table can appear in the first part of the mask as a literal character. Literal characters are inserted automatically if the second field of the mask is 0, or matched to characters in the Value parameter if the second field is any other value. The special mask characters can also appear as literal characters if preceded by a backslash character (\).
The second field of the mask is a single character that indicates whether literal characters from the mask are included in the Value parameter. For example, the mask for a telephone number with area code could be the following string:
(000)_000-0000;0;*
The 0 in the second field indicates that the Value parameter should consist of the 10 digits of the phone number, rather than the 14 characters that make up the final formatted string.
A 0 in the second field indicates that literals are inserted into the Value string, any other character indicates that they should be included. The character to indicate whether literals should be included can be changed by changing the MaskNoSave constant that is declared in the MaskUtils unit.
The third field of the mask is the character that appears in the returned string for blanks (characters that do not appear in Value). By default, this is the same as the character that stands for literal spaces. The two characters appear the same in the returned string.
Note: When working with multibyte character sets, each special mask character represents a single byte. To specify double-byte characters using the L, l, A, a, C, or c specifiers, the mask characters must be doubled as well. For example, LL would represent two single-byte alphabetic characters or a one double-byte character. Only single-byte literal characters are supported.