Re: how would you do this in rc

[culliton@srg.af.mil (Tom Culliton x2278)]

Use awk. ;-) ;-) ;-)  

Anything else would involve shifting through a copy of the list and
keeping a count with bc or something, or using bc to compute an index.
This is just off the top of my head and hasn't been tested...

# Invoked as: l=$mylist s=$mystring list_index
# there is probably a MUCH better way
fn list_index {
#	Is it even there?
	if (! ~ $l $s) {
		echo 0; return
	}
#	Go hunting for the first occurance
	cnt=1
	while (! ~ $l($cnt) $s) {
#		This is a bit gross...
		cnt=`{ echo $cnt + 1 | bc }
	}
#	Tell 'em where we found it
	echo $cnt
}