Manipulating strings in SQL, SPL

I am trying to do following in an Informix stroed procedure: DEFINE string CHAR(80); DEFINE another CHAR(80); DEFINE substring CHAR(4); DEFINE number INT; -- Copy first 4 characters from "string" to "substring" -- convert "substring" to "number" (integer type) to do calculation -- concatenate "substring" to "anotherstring" Are there any functions that manipulate strings and do type conversions? A cc: will be much appreciated. TIA -- Tin Zaw x.13205 mailto:tzaw@qualcomm.com Network Software Engineer QUALCOMM Inc. www.qualcomm.com