FIND and RFIND

The FIND command is used to search for one or more occurrences of a character string. You can enter the operands in any sequence except that col-2 must follow col-1, and data-name or CURSOR must be the last operand in the command. Operands must be separated by one or more blanks.

The operands function the same for the FIND command as they do for the CHANGE command. For more information about the operands, see CHANGE-and-RCHANGE.

See here for information on how the FIND command is affected by non-keyed and nonunique segments.

PL/I

You cannot use the FIND command to find individual bit patterns within a BIT data item. For example, if a field is declared as BIT(8) and contains 11000101, a FIND 101 command does not find the 101 in bits five through seven of the field. However, because 11000101 is the bit pattern for the character E, a FIND E or FIND X’C5’ command successfully finds E in the Bit field¹.

Important

¹: In Double-Byte Character Set (DBCS) support, the command line is in mixed mode. With the FIND command, the shift-out (X’0E’) and shift-in (X’0F’) characters that delineate a DBCS string are not used as part of the string search. For EBCDIC and MIXED strings, the search string is processed as is, including SO and SI characters.

Repeat Find (RFIND)

The RFIND command is used to find the next occurrence of the designated string. The other optional parameters remain in effect as specified in the last FIND command.

If you press a PF key assigned to the FIND or CHANGE command, File-AID for IMS treats the command as RFIND or RCHANGE.

FIND Command Screen

The FIND Command screen is displayed when the FIND command is entered without any operands in the Command field of an Edit or Browse screen².

Important

²: For Double-Byte Character Set (DBCS) support, the primary commands DBCS and MIXED enable you to change the format of From String and To String fields. See Double-Byte Character Support for a description of File-AID for IMS/ISPF’s DBCS support.

FIND Command Screen

File-AID for IMS ------------ FIND Command ---------------------------------
COMMAND ===>

Specify FIND operands:
       Find string ===>

      Segment name ===>          (Blank for all segment types)

          Modifier ===>          (NEXT, ALL, FIRST)

      Search range ===>          (NORCD, RCD, CHILD)

     Maximum calls ===>          (0 = No limit)

        Data-name ===>
            or
      Start column ===>        End column ===>       (Blank for default cols)

NOTE: You may bypass this screen by entering the FIND command with operands:
FIND string SEG(segment-name) (NEXT) (NORCD) GET(n) (col-1 (col-2))
F           SEGM              (ALL)   (RCD)    GN(n) (data-name)
            SEGMENT           (FIRST) (CHILD)         (CURSOR)
                                                      (CUR)
                                                      (C)

Find String

Enter the string that you want to search for. For more information on string syntax, see CHANGE-and-RCHANGE.

Segment Name

Enter the name of the segment type to be searched. If you do not specify a segment type, all segment types are searched unless you specify a data-name. In this case, the segment type that you are currently positioned on is searched.

Modifier

Enables you to control the starting point and extent of the search. The following operands are valid:

NEXT	Starts the scan at the current cursor location and proceeds forward to find the next occurrence of the string. This is the default operand.
ALL	Starts the scan at the top of the search range and proceeds forward to find all occurrences of the string.
FIRST	Starts the scan at the top of the search range and proceeds forward to find the first occurrence of the string.

Search Range

Allows you to control the range of the search. The following operands are valid:

NORCD	Searches the entire database. This is the default operand.
RCD	Searches only the current database record.
CHILD	Searches only the children of the current segment.

Maximum Calls

Enter the maximum number of segments to be searched. 0 is the default value. If you leave this field blank or specify 0, there is no limit placed on the extent of the search. In this case, all database segments are potentially searched.

When the number of segments processed reaches the number specified in the Maximum Calls field, the FIND/CHANGE Message screen is displayed. See here for an illustration and description of this screen.

You can limit the search to a portion of each segment rather than the entire segment by specifying a data-name or column boundaries.

Important

When a maximum get next limit has been set during the install for the environment you are operating, then you will be prompted to press enter to continue the processing when that limit is reached.

Data-Name

If you are in Formatted mode, you can specify a data-name that indicates the portion of the segment that corresponds to the field to be searched.

If you specify a data-name, it must exist in the current segment’s COBOL or PL/I layout. By specifying a data-name, the search is limited to the current segment type.

You can also use the CURSOR operand in place of a data-name. To do this, position the cursor on the data-name you want to limit the search to while in Formatted mode before you invoke the FIND command. When the FIND Command screen is displayed, enter CURSOR, CUR or C in the Data-Name field.

Start Column

Specify the starting position for the search.

End Column

Specify the ending position for the search. If you specify a Start column without an End column, the string must begin in the Start column to be found. If you specify both Start and End columns, the string does not need to begin in the Start column, but it must be completely contained within the boundaries to be found.

FIND and RFIND

Repeat Find (RFIND)

FIND Command Screen

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