There is a special case in which absolute and relative positional patterns do not work identically. We have shown how parsing with a template containing a string pattern skips over the data in the source string that matches the pattern (see Templates containing string patterns). But a template containing the sequence:

• string pattern
• variable name
• relative positional pattern

does not skip over the matching data. A relative positional pattern moves relative to the first character matching a string pattern. As a result, assignment includes the data in the source string that matches the string pattern.

/* Template containing string pattern, then variable name, then  */
/*  relative positional pattern does not skip over any data.     */
string='REstructured eXtended eXecutor'
parse var string var1 3 junk 'X' var2 +1 junk 'X' var3 +1 junk
say var1||var2||var3 /* Concatenates variables; displays: "REXX" */