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Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:30:00 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: wordposAtIndex() / wordAtIndex(): find the number of the word at
 a given index position
From: muk...@gmail.com
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thanks for the code bits.=20

Regarding the case when the index falls on a space character '20'x (a case =
I would normally not expect, but...) I would argue that the function should=
 return a value indicating the absence of a word, e.g. 0. Same would apply =
to a tab character '09'x, to stay compliant to the rexx definition of a whi=
tespace.

So in the preceding example, an if-statement would probably do the trick:

if substr(yyy,1,1)=3D=3D' ' | substr(yyy,1,1)=3D=3D'09'x then=20
  return 0
else
  return words(left(yyy,n))

/**/  parse arg n .;   if n=3D=3D'' then n=3D17
> yyy=3D'Georg Friedrich H=E4ndel, a great componist (sic)'
> say '         1         2         3         4       '
> say '12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567'
> say yyy
> say
> say 'word index at' n "is" words(left(yyy,n))
>=20
> ____________________________ Gerard Schildberger