FINDBYTES

The FINDBYTES function returns the byte position of the beginning of a specified group of bytes within a text expression.

Return Value

INTEGER

Syntax

FINDBYTES(text-expression, bytes [starting-pos [LINENUM]])

Arguments

text-expression

The text expression in which you are searching for the specified bytes. The value of text-expression can be a multiline value. In this case, FINDBYTES searches all lines for the specified bytes. The match must be exact, including a match of upper- and lowercase characters.

bytes

The group of bytes for which you are searching. When bytes is a multiline value, FINDBYTES ignores all lines except the first one.

When bytes is not found in text-expression, FINDBYTES returns zero. When the group of bytes occurs more than once, FINDBYTES returns the position of its first occurrence.

starting-pos

An INTEGER expression that specifies the byte position where the search in text-expression should start. The default is at position 1 (the first byte) in text-expression.

LINENUM

Specifies that FINDBYTES should return the line number instead of the byte position of the beginning of the specified text.

Notes

When you are using a single-byte character set, you can use the FINDCHARS function instead of the FINDBYTES function.

This function does not accept NTEXT arguments, because it is oriented toward byte-manipulation instead of character manipulation. It always returns values of type TEXT. When you must use this function on NTEXT values, use the CONVERT or TO_CHAR function to convert the NTEXT value to TEXT.

Examples

SHOW FINDBYTES('hellotherejoe', 'joe')

11

SHOW FINDBYTES('hellotherejoe', 'al')

0