If you do not specify any operands, the operands you specified last with FIND are used. The search for the specified string begins at the line following the current line. If you issue the TOP subcommand, the search for the specified string begins with the second line of the data set. Successive use of the FIND subcommand without operands allows you to search a data set, line by line.

string

specifies the sequence of characters (the character string) that you want to locate. You must precede this sequence of characters with an extra character that serves as a special delimiter. The extra character can be any printable character other than a number, apostrophe, semicolon, blank, tab, comma, parenthesis, or asterisk. Do not use the extra character in the character string or put a delimiter between the extra character and the string of characters.

Instead of using special delimiters to indicate a character string, you can use paired single quotation marks (apostrophes) to accomplish the same function with the FIND subcommand. The use of single quotation marks as delimiters for a character string is called quoted-string notation. Following are the rules for quoted-string notation for the string operand:

1. Enclose a string within single quotation marks; for example, ‘string character’.
2. Use two single quotation marks to represent a single quotation mark within a character string; for example, ‘pilgrims's progress’.
3. Use two single quotation marks to represent a null string; for example, ".

position

specifies the column within each line at which you want the comparison for the string to be made. This operand specifies the starting column of the field to which the string is compared in each line. If you want to consider a string starting in column 6, you must specify the digit 6 for the position operand. For COBOL data sets, the starting column is calculated from the end of the six-digit line number. If you want to consider a string starting in column 8, you must specify the digit 2 for this operand. When you use this operand with the special-delimiter form of notation for string, you must separate it from the string operand with the same special delimiter as the one preceding the string operand.