Problem with EXTRACT

[Chad Slattery <Chad.Slattery@CSCLAC.IRLGOV.IE>]

Hi all,
.As Ive used the group before, and Ive found it extremely helpful,
some queries are easy for some and not for others, so hopefully heres an
easy one for all (so I can get an answer)
We have recently migrated from SQR2.5 , unix, oracle6  to   SQR4.3 NT and
oracle 8.
In testing our sqr's that we've copied to NT from unix, I have come across
a problem with the EXTRACT function.
 Below is the code with my shows'
the $scps variable is populated with   8,   which gives the #howlong
variable a length of 1
 I want to strip the comma so....

***************************************************************************
*************************
let #howlong = length($scps) - 1
show  ' before extraction = ' $scps #howlong

extract $scps from $scps 0 #howlong

show ' after $scps extraction from howlong = ' $scps

***************************************************************************
*************************
When I run my program with sqr2.5 in unix, the before extraction will work,

it gives $scps a value of 8  which is the desired result.
Running it with sqr4.3 on NT, it doesnt pass anything out.  Can anyone see
anything wrong with the code
or is there different interpretation rules for extract with ver 4.3?  Ive
looked at the manuals for both versions
and there doesnt seem to be.  Any and all suggestions are welcome

yours SQRly,
Chad.