indexOf()

The strLib.indexOf() system function returns an index into a string of characters; the index indicates where a specified pattern begins.

Syntax

  strLib.indexOf(
    source STRING | UNICODE | CHAR | DBCHAR | MBCHAR inOut,
    pattern STRING | UNICODE | CHAR | DBCHAR | MBCHAR in
    [, skipCount INT in] )
  returns (result INT)

source: Input can be any value that is assignment compatible with the types shown.
pattern: A sequence of characters that EGL searches for in source. The value must be the same type as source.
skipCount: The number of initial characters in source to ignore before beginning the search for pattern. If this value is not valid (less than 0 or greater than the length of source), the function throws an IndexOutOfBounds exception.; Passing a skip count instead of a starting position allows you to iterate using the result of one invocation as the skipCount of the next, as is shown in Example 2 below.
result: The index of the beginning of pattern within source. If pattern is not found, the function returns 0.

Example 1

The following example locates the first two occurrences of a semicolon in the source string:

  source STRING = "STRING; CHAR; DBCHAR; MBCHAR; or UNICODE.";
  pattern STRING = "; "
  
  result = strLib.indexOf(source, pattern);
  // result is 7
  result = strLib.indexOf(source, pattern, 10);
  // result is 13

Example 2

The following example locates all occurrences of blanks in the source string:

   function indexOfExample()
      text string = "A BC DEF GHIJ" ;
      pIndex int = indexOf(text, " ", 0);
      while(pIndex != 0);
         writeStdOut("Blank index = " + pIndex);
         pIndex = indexOf(text, " ", pIndex);
      end
   end

The console displays the following lines:

Blank index = 2
Blank index = 5
Blank index = 9