SEARCH Function

Purpose

Returns the first position in a string where a character or bit of another string appears. You can also specify the location from which to start searching.

Syntax

SEARCH(x,y,z)

Parameters

x: An expression that specifies the string in which to search for a character or bit that appears in another string.

y: An expression where a character or bit appears.

z: An optional expression that specifies the location in the string x from which to start searching. It must have a computational type and is converted to Fixed Binary(31,0).

Description

SEARCH returns the first position in the string x where a character or bit of the string y appears. The result is an unscaled fixed binary value. If any of these two expressions is a null string, the result is zero. If y doesn't appear in x, the result is zero.

You can also specify the location from which to start searching with the expression z.

The result precision is Fixed Binary(31) unless the -bifprec compiler option overrides it.

The SEARCH function can be used to find delimiters in a string of numbers.

Examples

dcl s char (16);
    dcl i fixed bin (15);

    s = 'Newbury, England';
    i = search (s, 'ry');            /* i = 6, ‘r’ found starting from the left */

Restrictions

None.