StringScanner.SkipToStringI Function

Syntax

Result_Flag as L = SkipToStringI as l(characters as c)

Arguments

Result_Flag: True if the string was found.
characters: The character string to search for. Case insensitive.

Description

Skip until text matching string (case insensitive) is found. Return true if successful.

Discussion

The <StringScanner>.SkipToStringI() function moves the offset to the beginning of of Find_Text. The offset does not move if it is already pointing to Find_Text.

Example

dim scanner as P
dim txt as C
txt = <<%text%
This is wonderful prose written
by a technical writer of note.
%text%
scanner = stringscanner.create(txt)
? scanner.SkipToStringI("writer")
= .T.
? scanner.GetToOffset()
= This is wonderful prose written
by a technical
? scanner.getremainder()
= writer of note.

The following example uses <StringScanner>.SkipToString()to count instances of a string in a text file. <StringScanner>.SkipToString()positions the offset pointer at the beginning of the text that it finds. Note how sc.ScanOver(1) moves the offset pointer just enough so that the next search will find a different instance of the search text.

dim sc as P
dim fbuffer as C
dim fname as C
dim count as N = 0
dim flag as L = .F.
fname = ui_get_file("Get File","c:\*.hhc")
fbuffer = file.to_string(fname)
sc = stringscanner.create(fbuffer)
flag = sc.SkipToString("FIND_ME")
while flag = .T.
    if (flag = .T.) then
        count = count + 1
    end if
    sc.ScanOver(1)
    flag = sc.SkipToString("FIND_ME")
end while
ui_msg_box("Count", "FIND_ME = " + count)

A comparison with OCCURSI() showed that a WHILE...END WHILE loop using <StringScanner>.SkipToString()(similar to the above script) was approximately 60 times faster.