Locate and LocateUp (Regex function)
Find next item in Stringlist that matches a regex (Regex class)
These functions search a [Stringlist_class|Stringlist] for an item that matches the regular expression in the Regex object. Locate searches forward (low to high item number) in the Stringlist while LocateUp searches backward.
Syntax
[%itemNum =] regex:Locate( sl, [startItem], [StartCol= number], - [EndCol= number])
[%itemNum =] regex:LocateUp( sl, [startItem], [StartCol= number], - [EndCol= number])
Syntax terms
| %itemNum | The first matching item number. If no items match, 0 (zero) is returned. |
|---|---|
| regex | The Regex object |
| stringlist | The Stringlist to be searched |
| startItem | The item number at which to start searching. If 0 (the default), searching begins from the first item for Locate and the last item for LocateUp. Otherwise, startItem must be a number from 1 to the number of items in the Stringlist, inclusive. |
| StartCol | number The first column to include in the attempted match. The default value is 1. |
| EndCol | number The last column to include in the attempted match. The default value is effectively the value of the [MaxItemLength (Stringlist property)|Stringlist MaxItemLength property]. |
Usage notes
- These functions have identical functionality to the ][RegexLocate and RegexLocateUp (Stringlist functions)|Stringlist RegexLocate and RegexLocateUp]] functions.
- Invalid values for parameters (such as start column greater than end column) result in request cancellation.
Examples
The following example removes all items that match regular expression "(foo|fu)bar" (case insensitive) from a Stringlist:
%num is float %regex is object regex %sl is object stringlist ... %regex = new("(fu|foo)bar", options="i") %num = 1 repeat while %num le %sl:count %num = %regex:locate(%sl, %num) if %num eq 0 then loop end; end if %sl:removeItem(%num) end repeat