Format
spantext(Haystack,Needles,Start=1)
Returns
The number of consecutive characters, from the start position, that match the characters in Needles.
Args
Haystack: The text string to search.Needles: A text string with all the characters that match.Start: The text byte position in Haystack in which to begin the search.
This proc is case-sensitive. A common use for this proc is in parsing. spantext(“apples, oranges”,”, “,7) will tell you that, starting at position 7, you need to skip 2 characters to get past any commas or spaces.
If the start position is negative, the position is counted backwards from the end of the string.
Note
In strings containing non-ASCII characters, byte position and character position are not the same thing. Use
spantext_char()to work with character counts instead of bytes, at a performance cost. See the Unicode section for more information.