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string(n)                                   Tcl Built-In Commands                                  string(n)



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NAME
       string - Manipulate strings

SYNOPSIS
       string option arg ?arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION
       Performs  one  of  several  string  operations, depending on option.  The legal options (which may be
       abbreviated) are:

       string bytelength string
              Returns a decimal string giving the number of  bytes  used  to  represent  string  in  memory.
              Because  UTF-8  uses  one to three bytes to represent Unicode characters, the byte length will
              not be the same as the character length in general.  The cases where a script cares about  the
              byte  length  are  rare.   In  almost  all  cases,  you should use the string length operation
              (including determining the length of a Tcl ByteArray object).  Refer  to  the  Tcl_NumUtfChars
              manual entry for more details on the UTF-8 representation.

       string compare ?-nocase? ?-length int? string1 string2
              Perform a character-by-character comparison of strings string1 and string2.  Returns -1, 0, or
              1, depending on whether string1 is lexicographically less than,  equal  to,  or  greater  than
              string2.   If -length is specified, then only the first length characters are used in the com-parison. comparison.
              parison.  If -length is negative, it is ignored.  If -nocase is specified,  then  the  strings
              are compared in a case-insensitive manner.

       string equal ?-nocase? ?-length int? string1 string2
              Perform  a  character-by-character  comparison  of  strings string1 and string2.  Returns 1 if
              string1 and string2 are identical, or 0 when not.  If -length  is  specified,  then  only  the
              first  length  characters  are used in the comparison.  If -length is negative, it is ignored.
              If -nocase is specified, then the strings are compared in a case-insensitive manner.

       string first string1 string2 ?startIndex?
              Search string2 for a sequence of characters that exactly match the characters in string1.   If
              found, return the index of the first character in the first such match within string2.  If not
              found, return -1.  If startIndex is specified (in any of  the  forms  accepted  by  the  index
              method),  then  the  search is constrained to start with the character in string2 specified by
              the index.  For example,
                     string first a 0a23456789abcdef 5
              will return 10, but
                     string first a 0123456789abcdef 11
              will return -1.

       string index string charIndex
              Returns the charIndex'th character of the string argument.  A charIndex of  0  corresponds  to
              the first character of the string.  charIndex may be specified as follows:

              integer   The char specified at this integral index.

              end       The last char of the string.

              end-integer
                        The  last  char  of  the string minus the specified integer offset (e.g. end-1 would
                        refer to the "c" in "abcd").

              If charIndex is less than 0 or greater than or equal to the length of the string then an empty
              string is returned.

       string is class ?-strict? ?-failindex varname? string
              Returns  1  if string is a valid member of the specified character class, otherwise returns 0.
              If -strict is specified, then an empty string returns  0,  otherwise  and  empty  string  will
              return  1 on any class.  If -failindex is specified, then if the function returns 0, the index
              in the string where the class was no longer valid will be stored in the  variable  named  var-name. varname.
              name.  The varname will not be set if the function returns 1.  The following character classes
              are recognized (the class name can be abbreviated):

              alnum     Any Unicode alphabet or digit character.

              alpha     Any Unicode alphabet character.

              ascii     Any character with a value less than \u0080 (those  that  are  in  the  7-bit  ascii
                        range).

              boolean   Any of the forms allowed to Tcl_GetBoolean.

              control   Any Unicode control character.

              digit     Any  Unicode  digit  character.   Note  that this includes characters outside of the
                        [0-9] range.

              double    Any of the valid forms for a double in Tcl, with  optional  surrounding  whitespace.
                        In  case  of under/overflow in the value, 0 is returned and the varname will contain
                        -1.

              false     Any of the forms allowed to Tcl_GetBoolean where the value is false.

              graph     Any Unicode printing character, except space.

              integer   Any of the valid forms for a 32-bit integer in Tcl, with optional surrounding white-space. whitespace.
                        space.   In  case of under/overflow in the value, 0 is returned and the varname will
                        contain -1.

              lower     Any Unicode lower case alphabet character.

              print     Any Unicode printing character, including space.

              punct     Any Unicode punctuation character.

              space     Any Unicode space character.

              true      Any of the forms allowed to Tcl_GetBoolean where the value is true.

              upper     Any upper case alphabet character in the Unicode character set.

              wordchar  Any Unicode word character.  That is any alphanumeric  character,  and  any  Unicode
                        connector punctuation characters (e.g. underscore).

              xdigit    Any hexadecimal digit character ([0-9A-Fa-f]).

              In  the  case of boolean, true and false, if the function will return 0, then the varname will
              always be set to 0, due to the varied nature of a valid boolean value.

       string last string1 string2 ?lastIndex?
              Search string2 for a sequence of characters that exactly match the characters in string1.   If
              found,  return  the  index  of  the first character in the last such match within string2.  If
              there is no match, then return -1.  If lastIndex is specified (in any of the forms accepted by
              the  index  method),  then only the characters in string2 at or before the specified lastIndex
              will be considered by the search.  For example,
                     string last a 0a23456789abcdef 15
              will return 10, but
                     string last a 0a23456789abcdef 9
              will return 1.

       string length string
              Returns a decimal string giving the number of characters in string.  Note  that  this  is  not
              necessarily  the  same  as  the  number of bytes used to store the string.  If the object is a
              ByteArray object (such as those returned from reading a binary  encoded  channel),  then  this
              will return the actual byte length of the object.

       string map ?-nocase? charMap string
              Replaces  characters  in string based on the key-value pairs in charMap.  charMap is a list of
              key value key value ...  as in the form returned by array get.  Each instance of a key in  the
              string  will be replaced with its corresponding value.  If -nocase is specified, then matching
              is done without regard to case differences. Both key and value  may  be  multiple  characters.
              Replacement  is  done  in  an  ordered  manner, so the key appearing first in the list will be
              checked first, and so on.  string is only iterated over once, so earlier key replacements will
              have no affect for later key matches.  For example,
                     string map {abc 1 ab 2 a 3 1 0} 1abcaababcabababc
              will return the string 01321221.

       string match ?-nocase? pattern string
              See if pattern matches string; return 1 if it does, 0 if it doesn't.  If -nocase is specified,
              then the pattern attempts to match against the string in a case insensitive manner.   For  the
              two  strings  to  match,  their  contents  must be identical except that the following special
              sequences may appear in pattern:

              *         Matches any sequence of characters in string, including a null string.

              ?         Matches any single character in string.

              [chars]   Matches any character in the set given by chars.  If a  sequence  of  the  form  x-y
                        appears  in  chars, then any character between x and y, inclusive, will match.  When
                        used with -nocase, the end points of the range are converted to  lower  case  first.
                        Whereas  {[A-z]}  matches  '_' when matching case-sensitively ('_' falls between the
                        'Z' and 'a'), with -nocase this is considered like {[A-Za-z]} (and probably what was
                        meant in the first place).

              \x        Matches  the single character x.  This provides a way of avoiding the special inter-pretation interpretation
                        pretation of the characters *?[]\ in pattern.

       string range string first last
              Returns a range of consecutive characters from string, starting with the character whose index
              is  first and ending with the character whose index is last. An index of 0 refers to the first
              character of the string.  first and last may be specified as for the index method.   If  first
              is  less than zero then it is treated as if it were zero, and if last is greater than or equal
              to the length of the string then it is treated as if it were end.  If first  is  greater  than
              last then an empty string is returned.

       string repeat string count
              Returns string repeated count number of times.

       string replace string first last ?newstring?
              Removes a range of consecutive characters from string, starting with the character whose index
              is first and ending with the character whose index is last.  An index of 0 refers to the first
              character  of  the  string.  First and last may be specified as for the index method.  If new-string newstring
              string is specified, then it is placed in the removed character range.  If first is less  than
              zero then it is treated as if it were zero, and if last is greater than or equal to the length
              of the string then it is treated as if it were end.  If first is  greater  than  last  or  the
              length  of  the  initial  string,  or last is less than 0, then the initial string is returned
              untouched.

       string tolower string ?first? ?last?
              Returns a value equal to string except that all upper (or title) case letters have  been  con-verted converted
              verted  to lower case.  If first is specified, it refers to the first char index in the string
              to start modifying.  If last is specified, it refers to the char index in the string  to  stop
              at (inclusive).  first and last may be specified as for the index method.

       string totitle string ?first? ?last?
              Returns  a value equal to string except that the first character in string is converted to its
              Unicode title case variant (or upper case if there is no title case variant) and the  rest  of
              the  string  is  converted  to lower case.  If first is specified, it refers to the first char
              index in the string to start modifying.  If last is specified, it refers to the char index  in
              the string to stop at (inclusive).  first and last may be specified as for the index method.

       string toupper string ?first? ?last?
              Returns  a  value equal to string except that all lower (or title) case letters have been con-verted converted
              verted to upper case.  If first is specified, it refers to the first char index in the  string
              to  start  modifying.  If last is specified, it refers to the char index in the string to stop
              at (inclusive).  first and last may be specified as for the index method.

       string trim string ?chars?
              Returns a value equal to string except that any leading or trailing characters  from  the  set
              given  by  chars  are removed.  If chars is not specified then white space is removed (spaces,
              tabs, newlines, and carriage returns).

       string trimleft string ?chars?
              Returns a value equal to string except that any leading characters from the set given by chars
              are  removed.   If chars is not specified then white space is removed (spaces, tabs, newlines,
              and carriage returns).

       string trimright string ?chars?
              Returns a value equal to string except that any trailing characters  from  the  set  given  by
              chars  are removed.  If chars is not specified then white space is removed (spaces, tabs, new-lines, newlines,
              lines, and carriage returns).

       string wordend string charIndex
              Returns the index of the character just after the last one in the  word  containing  character
              charIndex  of  string.  charIndex may be specified as for the index method.  A word is consid-ered considered
              ered to be any contiguous range of alphanumeric (Unicode letters or decimal digits) or  under-score underscore
              score (Unicode connector punctuation) characters, or any single character other than these.

       string wordstart string charIndex
              Returns the index of the first character in the word containing character charIndex of string.
              charIndex may be specified as for the index method.  A word is considered to be any contiguous
              range  of  alphanumeric  (Unicode  letters or decimal digits) or underscore (Unicode connector
              punctuation) characters, or any single character other than these.


SEE ALSO
       expr(n), list(n)


KEYWORDS
       case conversion, compare, index, match, pattern, string, word, equal, ctype



Tcl                                                  8.1                                           string(n)

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