FIND

The FIND command searches a table item for a particular entry and returns the zero-based index of this entry (if found), or the empty string (if unfound, eh, not found, in which case an appropriate return code $RC will be set, too). Note that the FIND command can only be used with simple tables, and with string and name fields of extended tables.

#pos := FIND table entry field [ mask taggedonly respectcase ]

table

the name of the table item to search

entry

the zero-based index of the item where the search should start, the asterisk, * (or, obviously, the index 0) indicating that the whole table is to be searched

field

for an extended tables, this has to be the zero-based index, or the name of, of the string field, or the name field, to be searched. For simple tables, this parameter is ignored (but has to be present!), and should be set to *.

mask

the search mask (wildcards are possible)

taggedonly

If set to 0 (default), all entries of the table will be searched. if set to 1, only tagged entries will be searched.

respectcase

if set to 0 (default), the search will be case-insensitive. If set to 1, the search will case-sensitive.

For more complex query operations, you should consider the QUERY, or even the SET table FIND command (q.v.). N.B.: It is important to not mix up these commands, since they work in different ways, and offer different options, and functionality.

[macro FindStringInTable]
#t := new table *
$#t * 'The big red apple was very juicy'
$#t * 'The blue waves were mesmerizing'
$#t * 'The green man said - "You are coming with me"'
$#t * 'The red dwarf star was a million miles away'
#searchStr := 'red'
do forever
    #i := find $#t '$#i' '*' '*$#searchStr*'
    if '$rc' != 0 break
    um 'The table entry $#i ($#t[$#i]) contains the word "$#searchStr"'
end
delete /Var #t
exit

See also: QUERY, and SET table FIND