Textseach function working properly?

[John Graves]

I put this in the wrong forum, moving to Desktop Applications.

I'm trying to do a very simple text search to see if a specific string exists within another string.

I've tried textsearch it is always returning FALSE. Also, my example below using textsearch may seem backwards from the AlphaFive documentation, but if I code it according to the documentation I get an error "Cannot use function in this context" (search_in_string, find_string) as opposed to (find_string, search_in_string).

Example:

name = "Bugs Bunny"
bool = textsearch("*Bunny*",name)

bool is always FALSE.

However the following code will return TRUE:

name = "Bugs Bunny"
bool = textsearch("*Bugs Bunny*",name)

According to the documentation I should be able to find a substring within another string by using the "*" wildcard but it doesn't seem to be working....

[Alastair]

Re: Textseach function working properly?

John,

Have you tried using the following (taken from the Alpha Five V11 help file):

Description

The $ operator determines whether the character expression on the left of the operator is contained anywhere within the character expression on the right. Operations involving the $ operator return a logical result (i.e., TRUE or FALSE). The string comparison is not case sensitive.

If Find_String is a null string ("") then this operator will return TRUE. While this seems a meaningless comparison, this can happen if your Find_String is stored in a variable and you neglect to test whether the variable string is empty before using this operator in an expression or script.

Example:

dim zzz as c = "Computer"


? "Comp" $ zzz

I just tried the above example and it works fine for me...


Using your example it needs to be edited a bit:

? textsearch("Bugs Bunny", "Bugs")
= .T.

or you could use:

? textsearch("Bugs Bunny", "Bugs AND Bunny")
= .T.

or another example taken from the help documentation:

textsearch("now is the time for all good men", "time AND good") -> .T.

The first string is the text to search and the second the search phrase or phrases. You do not use the "*" for wild card search instead you use AND or OR.

PS these examples were carried out in the Code editor Interactive window that's why the ? is shown in front of some of the commands.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Textseach function working properly?

name = "Bugs*"


? textsearch("Bugs Bunny",name)
= .T.


name = "*ugs B*"

? textsearch("Bugs Bunny",name)
= .T.

[John Graves]

Re: Textseach function working properly?

Thanks for the ideas...but I'm still very confused.

1. What does the following mean (I see examples like this throughout the help documentation but have no idea what it is referring to):

? textsearch("Bugs Bunny",name)
= .T.

Is this some kind of monitor? This doesn't look like XBasic which I'm coding in.

2. I don't see how the above example accomplishes what I'm trying to do. Doesn't textsearch("Bugs Bunny",name) look for the string Bugs inside of Bugs Bunny? I don't have a hard-coded string as the first parameter, I have a variable, and whenever I use a variable as the first parameter I get an error message that says "Cannot use function in this context".

How would I code in XBasic, searching for the string "Bugs" inside a variable named VAR->NAME? textsearch(VAR->NAME, "Bugs") gets an error.

Thanks again for the help! I've been a VB coder for over 20 years and having trouble getting up to speed with XBasic.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Textseach function working properly?

1. What does the following mean

You can test expressions in the Interactive window. ? is shorthand for print/send results to window.

How would I code in XBasic, searching for the string "Bugs" inside a variable named VAR->NAME?

Don't know why textsearch() doesn't accept the variable as the search in string parameter but contains() and containsi() both seem to operate the way you want.

name = "Bugs Bunny"

? CONTAINSI(name,"Bugs")
= .T.

? CONTAINSI(name,"*ugs")
= .T.

? CONTAINS(name,"Bugs")
= .T.
? CONTAINS(name,"bugs")
= .F.


? CONTAINS(name,"*ugs")
= .T.

? CONTAINS(name,"*ugs b")
=.F.

[Alastair]

Re: Textseach function working properly?

John,

This should also work:

dim name as c = "Bugs Bunny" 'this declares a string variable and assigns it the value "Bugs Bunny"

? "Bugs" $ name 'this line checks that the string (in this case "Bugs") exists in the variable name.

= .T. 'this is the result

If you were writing this in XBasic you wouldn't need the question mark, instead you would probably assign the result to another variable e.g.:

dim name as C = "Bugs Bunny" 'declare variable and assign string
dim result as L 'declare variable for result (L is a logical variable - will hold True/False)

result = "Bugs" $ name 'carry out the check for the string and assign the result

The question mark makes the code editor display the result, without it you wont see it. You can use it yourself go to the menu (you must be in the control panel view not running your database when you do this), select view, then Code editor (3rd option down) on Alpha Five V11 at least.

It's quicker to demonstrate the code this way than it is for us to write the XBasic program and run it.

One thing to remember when using the $ function, is it's not case sensitive, so:

dim name as c = "Bugs Bunny"

? "bugs" $ name

= .T.

but,

dim name as c = "Bugs Bunny"

? "zugs" $ name

= .F.

Hope this is clearer?