stcpma

stcpma

Anchored Pattern Match

Portability: SAS/C extension

SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
EXAMPLE
RELATED FUNCTIONS
SEE ALSO

SYNOPSIS

#include <lcstring.h>

int stcpma(char *str, const char *pat);

DESCRIPTION

stcpma tests the input string addressed by str to determine whether it starts with a substring matching the pattern that pat points to. The search terminates if a match is not found at the beginning of the input string.

The pattern format can be specified using the symbols + , * , and ? , as described in the discussion of stcpm stcpm .

Although the stcpm and stcpma functions use the same pattern-matching notation, stcpma is different from stcpm in two ways:

stcpma looks for a match to the search pattern ( pat ) only at the beginning of the input string ( str ). The stcpm function scans the entire string for the first match, which may or may not occur at the beginning.
stcpma does not take a third argument.

RETURN VALUE

If it is successful, stcpma returns the length of the character sequence that matches the search pattern, or it returns 0 if no match is found.

In comparison to stcpm , both stcpm and stcpma can find the search pattern William A*.* *Tell in the following input string:

"William A. Tell, Margaret Fairfax-Tell"

However, stcpma cannot find the search pattern in this string:

"Margaret Fairfax-Tell, William A. Tell"

And stcpma cannot find it in this string, which contains an initial blank:

" William A. Tell"

EXAMPLE

#include <lcstring.h>
#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
   static char *sps[ ]  = {
      "William Tellas  Sr.",           /* no middle initial  */
      "William A Tella      ",         /* middle initial     */
      "William AAA. Tell!! ---",       /* initial and period */
      "William S. Teller; Then..",     /* wrong initial      */
   };
   int length, i;

      /* Find William Tell, whether or not he used his       */
      /*  middle initial.                                    */
   for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
      if (length = stcpma(sps[i], "William A*.* *Tell"))
         printf("%d. Match result = %.*s\n", i,length, sps[i]);
      else
         printf("%d. No match for string = %s\n",i,sps[i]);
   }
}

RELATED FUNCTIONS

stcpm

SEE ALSO

String Utility Functions

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