ILE COBOL Language Reference
- When both the TALLYING and REPLACING phrases are specified, the INSPECT
statement is executed as if an INSPECT TALLYING statement were specified,
immediately followed by an INSPECT REPLACING statement.
- The first comparand is compared with an equal number of leftmost
contiguous characters in the inspected item. The comparand matches the
inspected characters only if both are equal, character-for-character.
- If no match occurs for the first comparand, the comparison is repeated for
each successive comparand until either a match is found or all comparands have
been acted upon.
- If a match is found, tallying or replacing takes place, as described in
the following TALLYING/REPLACING phrase descriptions. In the inspected
item, the first character following the rightmost matching character is now
considered to be in the leftmost character position. The process
described in rules 2 and 3 is then repeated.
- If no match is found, then, in the inspected item, the first character
following the leftmost inspected character is now considered to be in the
leftmost character position. The process described in rules 2 and 3 is
then repeated.
- If the CHARACTERS phrase is specified, an implied one-character item is
used in the process described in rules 2 and 3. The implied character
is always considered to match the inspected character in the inspected
item.
- The actions taken in rules 1 through 6 (defined as the comparison
cycle) are repeated until the rightmost character in the inspected item
has either been matched or has been considered as being in the leftmost
character position. Inspection is then terminated.
When the BEFORE or AFTER phrase is specified, the preceding rules are
modified as described in BEFORE and AFTER Phrases (All Formats).
Figure 15 is an example of INSPECT statement results.
Figure 15. Example of INSPECT Statement Execution Results

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