FIND—Find a Data String

The FIND primary command locates one or more occurrences of a search string.

Syntax

string: The search string you want to find. See Finding, seeking, changing, and excluding data.
labela, labelb: Labels identifying the start and end of the group of lines which FIND is to search.
For more information about using labels to identify a group of lines, see Labels and line ranges.
NEXT: Starts at the first position after the current cursor location and searches ahead to find the next occurrence of string.
ALL: Starts at the top of the data and searches ahead to find all occurrences of string.
FIRST: Starts at the top of the data and searches ahead to find the first occurrence of string.
LAST: Starts at the bottom of the data and searches backward to find the last occurrence of string.
PREV: Starts at the current cursor location and searches backward to find the previous occurrence of string.
CHARS: Locates string anywhere the characters match.
PREFIX: Locates string at the beginning of a word.
SUFFIX: Locates string at the end of a word.
WORD: String is delimited on both sides by blanks or other non-alphanumeric characters.
X: Scans only lines that are excluded from the display.
NX: Scans only lines that are not excluded from the display.
start_col: The first column to be included in the range of columns to be searched. When you specify only one column, the editor finds the string only if the string starts in the specified column.
left_col: Number of the first column the FIND command is to search.
right_col: Number of the last column the FIND command is to search.

Note:

For more information about restricting the search to only a portion of each line, see Limiting the search to specified columns.
The FIND command allows you to control the starting point and the direction of the search by positioning the cursor and using either the NEXT or PREV operand. For more information, see Starting point and direction of the search.

Description

You can use the FIND command with the EXCLUDE and CHANGE commands to find a search string, change it, and exclude the line that contains the string from the panel.

To find the next occurrence of the letters ELSE without specifying any other qualifications:

On the command line, type:
```
FIND ELSE
```
Press Enter. Since no other qualifications were specified, the letters ELSE can be:
- Uppercase or a mixture of uppercase and lowercase
- At the beginning of a word (prefix), the end of a word (suffix), or the entire word (word)
- In either an excluded or a non-excluded line
- Anywhere within the current boundaries

To find the next occurrence of the letters ELSE, but only if the letters are uppercase:

On the command line, type:
```
FIND C'ELSE'
```
Press Enter. This type of search is called a character string search (note the C that precedes the search string) because it finds the next occurrence of the letters ELSE only if the letters are in uppercase. However, since no other qualifications were specified, the letters can be found anywhere in the data set or member, as outlined in the preceding list.

For more information, including other types of search strings, see Finding, seeking, changing, and excluding data.

Examples

The example shown here finds the first occurrence in the data set of the letters ELSE. However, the letters must occur on or between lines labeled .E and .S and they must be the first four letters of a word:

FIND ELSE .E .S FIRST PREFIX

The example shown here finds the last occurrence in the data set of the letters ELSE. However, the letters must occur on or between lines labeled .E and .S; they must be the last four letters of a word; and they must be found in an excluded line.

FIND ELSE .E .S LAST SUFFIX X

The example shown here finds the first occurrence of the letters ELSE that immediately precedes the cursor position. However, the cursor must not be positioned ahead of the lines labeled .E and .S. The letters must occur on or between lines labeled .E and .S; they must be standalone characters (not part of any other word); they must be found in a non-excluded line; and they must exist within columns 1 and 5:

FIND ELSE .E .S PREV WORD NX 1 5