Regarding Extract Function

Question

Hi, 
 I have a local variable that holds data like this. 
 local!data:[id:122,month:12,numberofdays:2]; [id:123,month:1,numberofdays:4]; [id:124,month:12,numberofdays:6]; 
 while extracting the "numberofdays" from the above format by using extract function like this 
 local!january:extract(local!data,"month:1,numberofdays:","]") 
 I am getting this error.please check this image.

Your suggestions are valuable 
 
 Thanks and Regards, 
 Divya

Carlos Santander · Answer

What type is local!data? Your code works well if it's a text variable. For instance, this returns 4: 
 
extract("[id:122,month:12,numberofdays:2]; [id:123,month:1,numberofdays:4]; [id:124,month:12,numberofdays:6];","month:1,numberofdays:","]") 
 
My guess is that local!data isn't a string but an array of either dictionaries or CDTs, in which case you'd be better off using something other than extract. Either a combination of index and wherecontains, or just using find would be better in that case. 
 
If you want to stick to using extract for whatever reason, just convert it to string before passing it to extract.