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lsearch(n)                                  Tcl Built-In Commands                                 lsearch(n)



____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NAME
       lsearch - See if a list contains a particular element

SYNOPSIS
       lsearch ?options? list pattern
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________


DESCRIPTION
       This command searches the elements of list to see if one of them matches pattern.  If so, the command
       returns the index of the first matching element (unless the options -all or -inline  are  specified.)
       If  not,  the command returns -1.  The option arguments indicates how the elements of the list are to
       be matched against pattern and must have one of the values below:

   MATCHING STYLE OPTIONS
       If all matching style options are omitted, the default matching style is -glob.   If  more  than  one
       matching style is specified, the last matching style given takes precedence.

       -exact Pattern is a literal string that is compared for exact equality against each list element.

       -glob  Pattern  is  a  glob-style  pattern  which is matched against each list element using the same
              rules as the string match command.

       -regexp
              Pattern is treated as a regular expression and matched against each  list  element  using  the
              rules described in the re_syntax reference page.

       -sorted
              The  list  elements are in sorted order.  If this option is specified, lsearch will use a more
              efficient searching algorithm to search list.  If no other  options  are  specified,  list  is
              assumed  to be sorted in increasing order, and to contain ASCII strings.  This option is mutu-ally mutually
              ally exclusive with -glob and -regexp, and is treated exactly like -exact when either -all  or
              -not are specified.

   GENERAL MODIFIER OPTIONS
       These options may be given with all matching styles.

       -all   Changes  the  result to be the list of all matching indices (or all matching values if -inline
              is specified as well.) If indices are returned, the indices will be in numeric order. If  val-ues values
              ues  are  returned, the order of the values will be the order of those values within the input
              list.

       -inline
              The matching value is returned instead of its index (or an empty string if no value  matches.)
              If  -all  is  also  specified,  then  the result of the command is the list of all values that
              matched.

       -not   This negates the sense of the match, returning the index of the first  non-matching  value  in
              the list.

       -start index
              The list is searched starting at position index.  The interpretation of the index value is the |
              same as for the command string index, supporting simple index arithmetic and indices  relative |
              to the end of the list.

   CONTENTS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
       These options describe how to interpret the items in the list being searched.  They are only meaning-ful meaningful
       ful when used with the -exact and -sorted options.  If more than one is specified, the last one takes
       precedence.  The default is -ascii.

       -ascii The  list elements are to be examined as Unicode strings (the name is for backward-compatibil-ity backward-compatibility
              ity reasons.)

       -dictionary
              The list elements are to be compared using  dictionary-style  comparisons  (see  lsort  for  a
              fuller  description). Note that this only makes a meaningful difference from the -ascii option
              when the -sorted option is given, because values are only dictionary-equal when exactly equal.

       -integer
              The list elements are to be compared as integers.                                              |

       -nocase                                                                                               ||
              Causes comparisons to be handled in a case-insensitive manner.  Has no effect if combined with |
              the -dictionary, -integer, or -real options.

       -real  The list elements are to be compared as floating-point values.

   SORTED LIST OPTIONS
       These options (only meaningful with the -sorted option) specify how the list is sorted.  If more than
       one is given, the last one takes precedence.  The default option is -increasing.

       -decreasing
              The list elements are sorted in decreasing order.  This option is only  meaningful  when  used
              with -sorted.

       -increasing
              The  list  elements  are sorted in increasing order.  This option is only meaningful when used
              with -sorted.

   NESTED LIST OPTIONS
       These options are used to search lists of lists.  They may be used with any other options.            |

       -index indexList                                                                                      ||
              This  option  is  designed for use when searching within nested lists.  The indexList argument |
              gives a path of indices (much as might be used with the lindex or lset commands)  within  each |
              element to allow the location of the term being matched against.                               |

       -subindices                                                                                           ||
              If this option is given, the index result from this command (or every index result  when  -all |
              is  also  specified) will be a complete path (suitable for use with lindex or lset) within the |
              overall list to the term found.  This option has no effect unless the -index  is  also  speci- |
              fied, and is just a convenience short-cut.

EXAMPLES
       Basic searching:
              lsearch {a b c d e} c
                    -> 2
              lsearch -all {a b c a b c} c
                    -> 2 5

       Using lsearch to filter lists:
              lsearch -inline {a20 b35 c47} b*
                    -> b35
              lsearch -inline -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
                    -> a2_
              lsearch -all -inline -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
                    -> a2_ c47
              lsearch -all -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
                    -> _ 2

       This can even do a "set-like" removal operation:
              lsearch -all -inline -not -exact {a b c a d e a f g a} a
                    -> b c d e f g

       Searching may start part-way through the list:
              lsearch -start 3 {a b c a b c} c
                    -> 5

       It is also possible to search inside elements:
              lsearch -index 1 -all -inline {{a abc} {b bcd} {c cde}} *bc*
                    -> {a abc} {b bcd}

SEE ALSO
       foreach(n),  list(n),  lappend(n),  lindex(n),  linsert(n), llength(n), lset(n), lsort(n), lrange(n),
       lreplace(n), string(n)                                                                                |

KEYWORDS
       list, match, pattern, regular expression, search, string



Tcl                                                  8.5                                          lsearch(n)

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