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

See also

Regex class	List of Regex methods	Regex methods syntax
Notation conventions for methods