# REFind()

Uses a regular expression (RE) to search a string for a pattern.

The search is case sensitive.

```
REFind( reg_expression=string, string=string, start=number, returnSubExpressions=boolean, scope=string, multiline=boolean );
```

**Returns:** any

# Arguments

| Argument | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|----------|------|----------|-------------|---------|
| reg_expression | string | Yes | Regular expression for which to search. Case sensitive. |  |
| string | string | Yes | String in which to search. |  |
| start | number | No | A positive integer. Position in the string at which to start search. The default value is 1. | 1 |
| returnSubExpressions | boolean | No | Default: false, If set `true` means returns the result as a struct with keys `pos`, `match` and `len`. Each are an array with elements for the position and length of the match (first element), and the position and length of any matched subexpressions in the subsequent elements. |  |
| scope | string | No | One: (Default)Returns the first value that matches the regex All: Returns all values that match the regex |  |
| multiline | boolean | No | If true indicate the regular expression should treat input as having multiple lines. This option affects the interpretation of the ^ and $ metacharacters. When true the ^ metacharacter matches at the beginning of every line, and the $ metacharacter matches at the end of every line. Additionally the . metacharacter will not match newlines when true. | false |

# Examples

```1
	writeDump(REFind("a+c+", "abcaaccdd"));
	writeDump(REFind("a+c*", "Abcaaccdd"));
	writeDump(REFind("['[:upper:]']", "abcaacCDD"));
	writeDump(REFind("[\?&]rep = ", "report.cfm?rep = 1234&u = 5"));

	teststring1 = "The cat in the hat hat came back!";
	st1 = REFind("(['[:alpha:]']+)[ ]+(\1)",teststring1,1,"TRUE");
	writeDump(st1['len'][3]);

	teststring2 = "AAAXAAAA";
	st2 = REFind("x",teststring2,1,"TRUE");
	writeDump(arrayLen(st2['pos']));
```







# Categories

[Strings](../../categories/string.md), [Regex](../../categories/regex.md)

# See Also

[Java Regex Engine](../../recipes/java-regex-engine.md), [string.reFind()](../objects/string/refind.md)