REGEX

REGEX returns a FIXED BIN(31) that indicates the success of matching a specified regular expression or pattern against a string.

>>-REGEX(i,j,p,x-+-----------+-)-------------------------------><
                 '-,n-+----+-'     
                      '-,c-'       

i

A reference. i must be ASSIGNABLE. If a match for the pattern is found, it will be assigned the index of the substring in x of the first match for the regular expression p. i must be REAL FIXED BIN with scale factor 0.

j

A reference. j must be ASSIGNABLE. If a match for the pattern is found, it will be assigned the length of the substring in x of the first match for the regular expression p. j must be REAL FIXED BIN with scale factor 0.

p

A string holding a regular expression. The pattern p must have CHARACTER type.

The pattern p must conform to the POSIX standard for Extended Regular Expressions (EREs) (and not to the POSIX standard for Basic Regular Expressions). Wikipedia and other web sites contain good descriptions of regular expressions.

x

A string. x is to be searched for a match with the regular expression p. The string x must have CHARACTER type.

n

An expression. n specifies the location within x at which to begin searching. n must have a computational type and is converted to FIXED BINARY(31,0). If omitted, it defaults to 1.

c

A restricted expression. c specifies the code page of p and x. If omitted, it defaults to the value in the CODEPAGE compiler option. If not omitted, a value for n must be specified.

The code page must have a computational type and is converted to FIXED BINARY (31,0). The code page must specify a valid, supported code page.

The characters [, ], {, }, |, ^, and $ occur often in regular expressions and have varying code points in different encoded character sets. The (implicit or explicit) code page value must correctly match the code page of p and x. If not, the pattern might be deemed to be invalid or a match might not be found.

The search for a match to the regular expression is case sensitive.

n = 1;
do loop;
  rc = regex( i, j, p, x, n );
  if rc <> 0 then leave;
  put skip list( substr( x, i, j ) );
  n = i + j;
end;