base.StringBuffer.getIndexOf

Return the position of a substring.

Syntax

getIndexOf(
   part STRING,
   start INTEGER )
  RETURNS INTEGER
  1. part is the substring to be found.
  2. start is the starting position.

Usage

The getIndexOf() method returns the position of a substring in the string buffer. Specify the substring and an integer specifying the position at which the search should begin. Use 1 if you want to start at the beginning of the string buffer.

The method returns zero if the substring is not found. 
CALL buf.append("abcdef")
DISPLAY buf.getIndexOf("def",1) -- Shows 4
Important:

When using byte length semantics, the position is expressed in bytes. When using char length semantics, the unit is characters. This matters when using a multibyte locale such as UTF-8.

Example

This example iterates through the complete string to display the position of multiple occurrences of the same substring. 

MAIN
   DEFINE buf base.StringBuffer
   DEFINE pos INTEGER
   DEFINE s STRING
   LET buf = base.StringBuffer.create()
   CALL buf.append("---abc-----abc--abc----")
   LET pos = 1
   LET s = "abc"
   WHILE TRUE
      LET pos = buf.getIndexOf(s,pos)
      IF pos == 0 THEN
         EXIT WHILE
      END IF
      DISPLAY "Pos: ", pos
      LET pos = pos + length(s)
   END WHILE
END MAIN
Output:
Pos:           4
Pos:          12
Pos:          17