| ActiveTcl User Guide |

## Tcl/Tk Documentation > TclCmd > lsearch

### Tcl/Tk Applications | Tcl Commands | Tk Commands | Tcl Library | Tk Library

  NAME
    lsearch - See if a list contains a particular element
  SYNOPSIS
    lsearch ?options? list pattern
  DESCRIPTION
  MATCHING STYLE OPTIONS
    -exact
    -glob
    -regexp
    -sorted
  GENERAL MODIFIER OPTIONS
    -all
    -inline
    -not
    -start index
  CONTENTS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
    -ascii
    -dictionary
    -integer
    -nocase
    -real
  SORTED LIST OPTIONS
    -decreasing
    -increasing
  NESTED LIST OPTIONS
    -index indexList
    -subindices
  EXAMPLES
  SEE ALSO
  KEYWORDS

### NAME

lsearch - See if a list contains a particular element

### SYNOPSIS

lsearch ?options? list pattern

### DESCRIPTION

This command searches the elements of list to see if one of them matches pattern. If so, the command returns the index of the first matching element (unless the options -all or -inline are specified.) If not, the command returns -1. The option arguments indicates how the elements of the list are to be matched against pattern and must have one of the values below:

#### MATCHING STYLE OPTIONS

If all matching style options are omitted, the default matching style is -glob. If more than one matching style is specified, the last matching style given takes precedence.

-exact
  Pattern is a literal string that is compared for exact equality against each list element.
-glob
  Pattern is a glob-style pattern which is matched against each list element using the same rules as the string match command.
-regexp
  Pattern is treated as a regular expression and matched against each list element using the rules described in the re_syntax reference page.
-sorted
  The list elements are in sorted order. If this option is specified, lsearch will use a more efficient searching algorithm to search list. If no other options are specified, list is assumed to be sorted in increasing order, and to contain ASCII strings. This option is mutually exclusive with -glob and -regexp, and is treated exactly like -exact when either -all or -not are specified.

#### GENERAL MODIFIER OPTIONS

These options may be given with all matching styles.

-all
  Changes the result to be the list of all matching indices (or all matching values if -inline is specified as well.) If indices are returned, the indices will be in numeric order. If values are returned, the order of the values will be the order of those values within the input list.
-inline
  The matching value is returned instead of its index (or an empty string if no value matches.) If -all is also specified, then the result of the command is the list of all values that matched.
-not
  This negates the sense of the match, returning the index of the first non-matching value in the list.
-start index
  The list is searched starting at position index. The interpretation of the index value is the same as for the command string index, supporting simple index arithmetic and indices relative to the end of the list.

#### CONTENTS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS

These options describe how to interpret the items in the list being searched. They are only meaningful when used with the -exact and -sorted options. If more than one is specified, the last one takes precedence. The default is -ascii.

-ascii
  The list elements are to be examined as Unicode strings (the name is for backward-compatibility reasons.)
-dictionary
  The list elements are to be compared using dictionary-style comparisons (see lsort for a fuller description). Note that this only makes a meaningful difference from the -ascii option when the -sorted option is given, because values are only dictionary-equal when exactly equal.
-integer
  The list elements are to be compared as integers.
-nocase
  Causes comparisons to be handled in a case-insensitive manner. Has no effect if combined with the -dictionary, -integer, or -real options.
-real
  The list elements are to be compared as floating-point values.

#### SORTED LIST OPTIONS

These options (only meaningful with the -sorted option) specify how the list is sorted. If more than one is given, the last one takes precedence. The default option is -increasing.

-decreasing
  The list elements are sorted in decreasing order. This option is only meaningful when used with -sorted.
-increasing
  The list elements are sorted in increasing order. This option is only meaningful when used with -sorted.

#### NESTED LIST OPTIONS

These options are used to search lists of lists. They may be used with any other options.

-index indexList
  This option is designed for use when searching within nested lists. The indexList argument gives a path of indices (much as might be used with the lindex or lset commands) within each element to allow the location of the term being matched against.
-subindices
  If this option is given, the index result from this command (or every index result when -all is also specified) will be a complete path (suitable for use with lindex or lset) within the overall list to the term found. This option has no effect unless the -index is also specified, and is just a convenience short-cut.

### EXAMPLES

Basic searching:

    lsearch {a b c d e} c
          → 2
    lsearch -all {a b c a b c} c
          → 2 5

Using lsearch to filter lists:

    lsearch -inline {a20 b35 c47} b*
          → b35
    lsearch -inline -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
          → a20
    lsearch -all -inline -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
          → a20 c47
    lsearch -all -not {a20 b35 c47} b*
          → 0 2

This can even do a “set-like” removal operation:

    lsearch -all -inline -not -exact {a b c a d e a f g a} a
          → b c d e f g

Searching may start part-way through the list:

    lsearch -start 3 {a b c a b c} c
          → 5

It is also possible to search inside elements:

    lsearch -index 1 -all -inline {{a abc} {b bcd} {c cde}} *bc*
          → {a abc} {b bcd}

### SEE ALSO

foreach, list, lappend, lindex, linsert, llength, lset, lsort, lrange, lreplace, string

### KEYWORDS

list, match, pattern, regular expression, search, string
Copyright © 1995-1997 Roger E. Critchlow Jr. Copyright © 1993 The Regents of the University of California. Copyright © 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Copyright © 2001 Kevin B. Kenny <kennykb(at)acm.org>. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2003-2004 Donal K. Fellows.