Author: Lou Adler

Search and replace

Answer:

Almost every text editor / word processor has the ability to search for a given 
string and replace it with another. If you're planning on adding similar 
functionality to your application, here's an example of where all of it can start:

1   function SearchAndReplace(
2     sSrc, sLookFor, sReplaceWith
3     : string)
4     : string;
5   var
6     nPos, nLenLookFor: integer;
7   begin
8     nPos := Pos(sLookFor, sSrc);
9     nLenLookFor := Length(sLookFor);
10    while (nPos > 0) do
11    begin
12      Delete(sSrc, nPos, nLenLookFor);
13      Insert(sReplaceWith, sSrc, nPos);
14      nPos := Pos(sLookFor, sSrc);
15    end;
16    Result := sSrc;
17  end;


For example, let's say you have a string -- 'this,is,a,test' -- and you want to 
replace the commas with spaces. Here's how you'd call SearchAndReplace():
18  
19  SearchAndReplace('this,is,a,test', ',', ' ')
20  
21  SearchAndReplace() will now return the string 'this is a test'.