Learning Perl/Tk

8.14. Searching the Contents of a Text Widget

You can use the search method to search the text widget for a pattern or regular expression. The search method takes some optional switches, the pattern to search for, and an index at which to start searching:

$index = $text->search([switches], pattern, index, [ stopindex ])

If a match is made, the index returned will point to the first character in the match. If no match is made, an empty string is returned.

The possible switches are:

-forwards

Tells searchto search forward through the text widget starting at index. This is the default.

-backwards

Tells searchto search backward through the text widget starting at the character before index.

-exact

The pattern must match the text exactly. This is the default.

-regexp

The patternwill be considered as a regular expression.

-nocase

Ignores case between pattern and the text within the text widget.

-count => varname

varname is a pointer to a variable (i.e., \$variable). The number of characters matched will be stored within that variable.

--

This option does nothing except force the next argument to be taken as the pattern even if the next string starts with a "-".

Here is a simple example of using search:

$result = $text->search(-backwards, "find me", 'end');

$location = $text->search(-nocase, "SWITCHES", "1.0");