FindNextItemNumber (Arraylist function)

Return number of matching item (Arraylist class)

FindNextItemNumber searches "forward" in the Arraylist to find and return the item number of the next item that matches a specified criterion. The criterion is supplied by the SelectionCriterion object that is a required FindNextItemNumber parameter. If no item satisfies the criterion, the method returns a zero.

Syntax

%number = al:FindNextItemNumber( selectionCriterion, [Start= number])

Syntax terms

%number	A numeric variable to return the item number of the item that is located by the search.
al	An Arraylist object.
selectionCriterion	A selectionCriterion object, which is a relational expression that is applied to an al item value to determine whether the value satisfies the expression. The expression consists of a function, an operator, and a numeric or string value. For example, GT(this, -11) is the criterion this > -11, where this is an identity function that simply returns the item's value. The first item tested by FindNextItemNumber that satisfies this expression is the method's return value. The function in the criterion is a method value (a method or class member name literal, or a method variable) for a method that operates on items of the type specified on the al declaration and that returns a numeric or string value. This is described further in "Specifying a SelectionCriterion's parameters".
Start	The number of the item after which to begin the search. If the number value of Start is 2, item 3 is the first item considered. The value of Start may be 0 through the number of items in the collection. For a collection of three items, number may be 0, 1, 2, or 3. The default value for Start is 0; to start from the first item in al. This is an optional, but NameRequired, argument; if you specify a value, the parameter name Start is required.

Usage notes

• If the value of start is greater than the number of items in the Arraylist, the request is cancelled. If the value of start is equal to the number of items, FindNextItemNumber returns a zero.
• FindNextItemNumber is available in Sirius Mods Version 7.6 and later.
• If one is only looking for the first or only item that matches that selection criteria and one doesn't care about the item number of the matching item, FindNextItem might be a better method to use than FindNextItemNumber.

Examples

1. The following request contains two FindNextItemNumber calls, one with a simple selection criterion and one with a compound criterion:

   begin %al is arraylist of float %al = list(111, 29, 0, 93, 77, -345) %sel1 is object selectionCriterion for float %sel2 is object selectioncriterion for float %sel1 = GT(this, 100) %sel2 = AND(GE(this, 53), LT(this, 93)) printText {~} is: {%al:findNextItemNumber(%sel1, start=1)} printtext {~} is: {%al:findNextItemNumber(%sel2)} end

   The result is:

   %al:findNextItemNumber(%sel1, start=1) is: 0 %al:findNextItemNumber(%sel2) is: 5

See also

• FindPreviousItemNumber is identical to FindNextItemNumber except that it searches backward in the Arraylist.

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