lastIndexOf( )

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Returns a number that represents the starting position of a string within another string. lastIndexOf( ) searches backward from the right end of the target string, and returns a value counting from the beginning of the target.

Syntax

<target expC>.lastIndexOf(<search expC> [, <from index expN>])

<target expC>

The string in which you want to search for <search expC>.

<search expC>

The string you want to search for in <target expC>.

<from index expN>

Where you want to start searching for the string. By default, dBASE Plus starts searching at the end of the string, index <target expC>.length – 1.

Property of

String

Description

This method is similar to the RAT( ) function, but in addition to the syntactic difference of being a method instead of a function and the fact that the position is zero-based, the optional parameter specifies where to start searching instead of the nth occurrence to find.

Use lastIndexOf( ) to search for the <search expC> in a target string, searching right to left, end to beginning, from the character at <from index expN> to the first character. The search is case-sensitive. Use toUpperCase( ) or toLowerCase( ) to make the search case-insensitive.

Even though the search starts from the end of the target string, lastIndexOf( ) returns an index representing where a search string begins in a target string, counting from the beginning of the target. The first character of the string is at index 0 and the last character is at index <target expC>.length – 1. If <search expC> occurs only once in the target, lastIndexOf( ) and indexOf( ) return the same value. For example, "abcdef".lastIndexOf("abc") and "abcdef".indexOf("abc") both return 0.

lastIndexOf( ) returns –1 when:

The search string isn’t found

The search string or target string is empty

The search string is longer than the target string

To find the starting position of <search expC>, searching from left to right, beginning to end, use indexOf( ).