Converting control characters to spaces in a Unicode program?

Question

I want to take an ASCII character string and convert any
ASCII Control Characters to Spaces.
In a non-Unicode program, I define the following hex constant:
CONSTANTS: c_control_to_space(64) TYPE x VALUE
  '00200120022003200420052006200720082009200A200B200C200D200E200F20' &
  '10201120122013201420012016201720182019201A201B201C201D201E201F20'.
I then execute the following TRANSLATE statement:
      TRANSLATE w_transcript USING c_control_to_space.
What would be the "approved" method of accomplishing the same effect
in a Unicode program?

Answer 1

Neil,
First, thank you for pointing out my typo. You are correct that the "0120" in the second line of the literal was intended to be "1520".
Second, thank you for your suggestion. Based on your idea, I tried something similar, but not exactly what you suggested. In particular, since I can't figure out how to construct the constant that I want, I used your idea to construct it as  a variable, as follows:
  DATA number TYPE i.
  DATA offset TYPE i.
  DATA hex(4) TYPE x.
  FIELD-SYMBOLS <char> TYPE c.
  ASSIGN hex TO <char> CASTING TYPE c.
  DATA w_control_to_space(64) TYPE c.
  DO 32 TIMES.
    hex = sy-index - 1.
    offset = 2 * ( sy-index - 1 ).
    number = STRLEN( <char> ).
    IF number GT 1.
      SUBTRACT 1 FROM number.
      SHIFT <char> LEFT BY number PLACES.
    ENDIF.
    w_control_to_space+offset(1) = <char>.
  ENDDO.
After having constructed "w_control_to_space", I can now use the TRANSLATE statement:
  TRANSLATE w_transcript USING w_control_to_space.
This code passes the Unicode syntax checks and works correctly on a non-Unicode system. I don't have access to a Unicode system on which to run it. I'd appreciate any feedback on this approach - especially if someone can actually test it on a Unicode system.