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CHR_WILD  -  Return whether a string matches a wild-card pattern

Description:
A candidate string is matched with a another character string containing a pattern of characters and wild-card characters. The wild-cards used are:

% a single character wild-card; an arbitrary length string wild-card, including zero length.

There is also a literal escape character '' for use when the characters '' and '%' are to be interpreted literally within the wild-card pattern.

Invocation:
RESULT = CHR_WILD( STRING, WILDS, MATCH )

Arguments:
STRING = CHARACTER ( ) (Given)
The candidate string to be matched.
WILDS = CHARACTER ( ) (Given)
The wild-card pattern to be used in the match.
MATCH = CHARACTER ( ) (Returned)
The wild-card match: this string must be the same length as STRING. All characters matched individually are returned as blanks in MATCH, and all characters matched by wild-cards are returned assigned to the particular wild-cards they matched. If the length of MATCH is less than that of STRING, then CHR_WILD returns the value .FALSE.

Returned Value:
CHR_WILD = LOGICAL
Whether the two strings match after expanding the wild-card pattern.



next up previous
Next: Portability
Up: Routine Descriptions
Previous: CHR_UPPER - Return uppercase equivalent of a character



CHR Character Handling Routines
Starlink User Note 40
A C Charles
P C T Rees
A J Chipperfield
2 August 1995
E-mail:ussc@star.rl.ac.uk