# $EPIC: index.txt,v 1.2 2007/03/02 02:32:04 jnelson Exp $
======Synopsis:======
$__index__(<characters> <text>)

======Technical:======
   * The <characters> argument is a [[what is a word|dword]].  This is different from most functions.
   * <characters> may contain any number of different characters.  If you want to include the space character, enclose <characters> in double quotes.  If you want to include the double-quote character, then put some other character before it that won't be in <text>.
   * If the first character in <characters> is the caret ("^"), then the list of <characters> is negated; <characters> includes all characters that are NOT after the caret.
   * Counting begins after the first space after <characters>.  If multiple spaces separate <characters> and <text>, only the first such space is the separator; further spaces are part of <text> for the purpose of counting.
   * The return value is the number of initial characters in <text> that are NOT any of the characters specified by <characters>; the position of the first instance of any character in <characters> in the string <text>, counting from zero.
   * If none of the characters in <characters> appears in <text> (a failed search), then -1 is returned.

======Practical:======
It used to be common to use $index() to find a character in a string so
that you could extract the parts of the string before and after the 
character.  This is more easily done by $[[before]]() and $[[after]]() though.

======Returns:======
<file>
  -1   no character in <characters> was found in <text>
> -1   index to first instance of something in <characters> in <text>
</file>

======History:======
This function originally appeared in ircII.

======Examples:======
<file>
$index(abc hello there bob)          returns 12
$index(abc   hello there bob)        returns 14 (because of the spaces after 'c' and before 'h')
$index(xyz hello there bob)          returns -1
$index()                             returns the empty string
</file>