Search for pattern in the first few lines of a buffer

[Lifepillar]

I need to programmatically search for a pattern in the first ten lines
of a given buffer, and save the match in a variable when found. Say, the
pattern is:

% KEY = value

I need to extract the value if the above appears in the first lines of
the buffer. Of course, the state of the buffer's window, such as the
cursor's position, etc., and the content of registers should not be
affected. How would you do that?

Thanks,
Life.

[Yegappan Lakshmanan]

Hi,

You can use getbufline() to read the first 10 lines of the buffer
as a list and then use match() to find the index of the item matching
a pattern in the list. You can then use substitute() or matchstr()
to extract the value.

Regards,
Yegappan

[Lifepillar]

That is a simple strategy!

Thanks,
Life.