ANCHOR

    Causes a search to try to match the pattern following ANCHOR starting
    at the current character position.  If the match does not occur
    immediately, the search does not skip over characters looking for a
    match.

    ANCHOR is a keyword, not a built-in, and has no parameters.

    By default, if a search fails to find a match for a pattern, VAXTPU
    moves the starting position for the search one character in the
    direction of the search and starts the search again.  If you use ANCHOR
    as the first element of a pattern definition, SEARCH does not move the
    starting position for the search.  This means the search will not match
    the pattern unless the pattern is encountered starting at the starting
    position of the search.

    ANCHOR is useful only as the first element of a complex pattern.  It is
    legal elsewhere in a pattern definition, but has no effect.

 Example

    The following assignment statement creates a pattern consisting of a,
    1, 2, and 3.  If you used pat1 as a parameter to the SEARCH built-in,
    the search would not move from character to character looking for the
    pattern.

    pat1 := ANCHOR + 'a' + '123';

 Related Topics

    SEARCH   SEARCH_QUIETLY   UNANCHOR