Browsing Output › Browse Commands › FIND and Special Strings › Picture Strings

Picture Strings

Use a picture string to describe the type of string to be found instead of specifying the exact characters to be found.

A picture string is:

• A quoted string that is preceded or followed by the letter P.
• A string that might contain blanks or alphabetic and numeric characters or both that represent themselves, or any of the special characters listed below.

Each of these characters represents a class of characters:

= (equal sign)

Any character

@ (at sign)

Alphabetic characters

# (pound sign)

Numeric characters

$ (dollar sign)

Special characters

¹ (not sign)

Non-blank characters

. (period)

Invalid display characters

– (minus sign)

Non-numeric characters

< (less than)

Lowercase alphabetic characters

> (greater than)

Uppercase alphabetic characters

Examples

This command finds invalid characters in columns 73 to 80:

Command ===> find p'.' 73 80

This command finds a 3-digit number (for example, 120 but not 85):

Command ===> find p'###'

This command finds the label A1, B1, C1, and so on in column 1:

Command ===> find '@1'p 1

This command finds the next lowercase alphabetic:

Command ===> find p'<'