# SEARCH

| **Description** | The **`SEARCH()`** function is used to locate the starting position of a specific search string within a given text. It returns the character position of the first occurrence of the search string, or -1 if no match is found. This function is useful for tasks like pattern recognition and data extraction. |
| --------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Syntax**      | SEARCH(**`text`**, **`search`**)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |

1. **`text`**: The input text string in which you want to search for the search string.
2. **`search`**: The search string you want to find within the text.

{% hint style="info" %}
The **`SEARCH()`** function is case-sensitive, meaning it will only search text that exactly matches the specified search string in terms of both character sequence and letter case. If you need case-insensitive search, you may consider using **`REGEX_SEARCH()`** to achieve the desired result.
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" %}
When the **`SEARCH()`** function returns -1, it indicates that **there is no matching occurrence** of the specified regular expression pattern or offset within the given text.

*For example, if a user is looking for specific data and **`SEARCH()`** function returns -1, they might conclude that the desired data is not present in the document.*
{% endhint %}

## Example

### Table

| ID | Text                                       |
| -- | ------------------------------------------ |
| 1  | The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. |
| 2  | Savant is an intelligent analytics tool.   |
| 3  | There are no matches in this text.         |

### Function

```
SEARCH(`Text`, "fox")
```

### Results

| SEARCH(Text, "fox") |
| ------------------- |
| 17                  |
| -1                  |
| -1                  |
