Guru Classic: A Bevy of BIFs – %SCAN and %CHECK

January 16, 2019 Jon Paris

Many RPG programmers seem to get confused about the usage and operation of a number of built-in functions (BIFs). In particular the BIFs %XLATE, %REPLACE, %SCAN, and %CHECK seem to cause a lot of confusion. In this tip, I focus on %CHECK and %SCAN. I decided to re-visit this particular tip because of the recent introduction of %SCAN’s companion BIF %SCANR and a related enhancement to %SCAN itself. More on this later.

The %SCAN BIF has been with us since V3R7, when it was introduced along with %EDITC and %EDITW, to improve string handling. %CHECK, on the other hand, is …