Tech Tip: Utility to get minimum value given a set of values

PRODUCT: 4D | VERSION: 15.1 | PLATFORM: Mac & Win

Published On: September 2, 2016

The 4D command MIN returns the minimum value given a series (field or array). Below is an utility method that returns the minimum of the given values (passed in as parameters).

// Method: UTIL_MIN
// Return minimum of given values
// Parameters:
// {$1} - values
// $0 - minimum of the values
C_REAL(${1})
C_REAL($0;$min)
C_LONGINT($paramLen;$i)

$paramLen:=Count parameters
If ($paramLen>=1)
   $min:=$1
   For ($i;2;$paramLen)
      If ($min>${$i})
         $min:=${$i}
      End if
   End for
End if
$0:=$min

Example:

Below is an example of getting the minumum values:

C_REAL($min)
$min:=UTIL_MIN(44.3;34.01;546;0x234;-1.3;-0.4)

The example above returns -1.3 as the minimum.

The method will return a real. If a longint is necessary, type $min as a longint:

C_LONGINT($min)
$min:=UTIL_MIN(44.3;34.01;546;0x234;-1.3;-0.4)

$min will be -1.

Commented by Timothy Tse on September 7, 2016 at 2:39 PM

Hi Benoit, There was an error in the code. The error has now been fixed.

Commented by Benoît BRIERE on September 5, 2016 at 2:48 AM

I can even say that $min will always be <=0…