Query

[Vivek]

How to search for a particular string in a file?

 

[Chad]

I would COPY-LOB the contents of the file to a variable and then just use the INDEX() function to find the string in the variable

 

[Vivek]

I would COPY-LOB the contents of the file to a variable and then just use the INDEX() function to find the string in the variable

Thanks Chad! But I want to count the number of occurrences of that string also.

 

[Chad]

Remove the string each time you find it in the variable and count the number of times you remove the string

def var lcFileContent as longchar no-undo.
def var cStringToFind as character no-undo.
def var iCount as integer no-undo.

assign
  lcFileContent = "how many times can we find the 'an' string in this sentance?"
  cStringToFind = "an"
  iCount = 0.

do while index(lcFileContent,cStringToFind) > 0:

  assign
    substring(lcFileContent,index(lcFileContent,cStringToFind),length(cStringToFind)) = ""
    iCount = iCount + 1.

end.

message iCount.

You may want to replace the string with some arbitrary characters instead... so you dont create a false result if you inadvertently create a new string accidentally when removing characters.

 

[Vivek]

Remove the string each time you find it in the variable and count the number of times you remove the string

def var lcFileContent as longchar no-undo.
def var cStringToFind as character no-undo.
def var iCount as integer no-undo.

assign
  lcFileContent = "how many times can we find the 'an' string in this sentance?"
  cStringToFind = "an"
  iCount = 0.

do while index(lcFileContent,cStringToFind) > 0:

  assign
    substring(lcFileContent,index(lcFileContent,cStringToFind),length(cStringToFind)) = ""
    iCount = iCount + 1.

end.

message iCount.

You may want to replace the string with some arbitrary characters instead... so you dont create a false result if you inadvertently create a new string accidentally when removing characters.

Thanks a lot Chad

 

[jdpjamesp]

If you can guarantee that a certain character doesn't appear in the string then you can do something similar to below:

define variable MyString as longchar   no-undo initial 'JP454554JP3223'.

message num-entries(replace(MyString,"JP","|"),"|") - 1
    view-as alert-box info buttons ok.

 

[andre42]

Remove the string each time you find it in the variable and count the number of times you remove the string

Sounds pretty inefficient. The INDEX function has an optional third parameter which tells it where to start the search. So you just add 1 to the last returned value and call it again until no more matches are found.