When {expr} is a List then this returns the index of the first item where {pat} matches. Each item is used as a String, Lists and Dictionaries are used as echoed.

Otherwise, {expr} is used as a String. The result is a Number, which gives the index (byte offset) in {expr} where {pat} matches.

A match at the first character or List item returns zero. If there is no match -1 is returned.

For getting submatches see matchlist(). Example:

:echo match("testing", "ing")   " results in 4
:echo match([1, 'x'], '\a')     " results in 1

See string-match for how {pat} is used.

Vim doesn't have a strpbrk() function. But you can do:

:let sepidx = match(line, '[.,;: \t]')

Vim doesn't have a strcasestr() function. But you can add "\c" to the pattern to ignore case:

:let idx = match(haystack, '\cneedle')

If {start} is given, the search starts from byte index {start} in a String or item {start} in a List. The result, however, is still the index counted from the first character/item. Example:

:echo match("testing", "ing", 2)

result is again "4".

:echo match("testing", "ing", 4)

result is again "4".

:echo match("testing", "t", 2)

result is "3". For a String, if {start} > 0 then it is like the string starts {start} bytes later, thus "^" will match at {start}. Except when {count} is given, then it's like matches before the {start} byte are ignored (this is a bit complicated to keep it backwards compatible). For a String, if {start} < 0, it will be set to 0. For a list the index is counted from the end. If {start} is out of range ({start} > strlen({expr}) for a String or {start} > len({expr}) for a List) -1 is returned.

When {count} is given use the {count}'th match. When a match is found in a String the search for the next one starts one character further. Thus this example results in 1:

echo match("testing", "..", 0, 2)

In a List the search continues in the next item. Note that when {count} is added the way {start} works changes, see above.

See pattern for the patterns that are accepted. The 'ignorecase' option is used to set the ignore-caseness of the pattern. 'smartcase' is NOT used. The matching is always done like 'magic' is set and 'cpoptions' is empty. Note that a match at the start is preferred, thus when the pattern is using "*" (any number of matches) it tends to find zero matches at the start instead of a number of matches further down in the text.

Can also be used as a method:

GetText()->match('word')
GetList()->match('word')