contains()

The contains() function returns whether a target value contains a specified value.

Syntax

Parameters

TARGET

The value to search within. Accepts a string, array, or list.

NEEDLE

The value to check for within TARGET.

Description

The behavior of contains() depends on the types of TARGET and NEEDLE:

• String: Returns true if TARGET contains NEEDLE as a substring, and false otherwise. Non-string values are converted using toString() before the check.
• Array or list: Returns true if any element in the TARGET array or list equals NEEDLE, and false otherwise.

If TARGET or NEEDLE is null, the function returns false.

Error codes

N/A

Usage examples

To prepare the WEB_APACHE_SAMPLE table used in these examples, refer to Preparing sample data.

1. Check whether the User-Agent contains a crawler string

   table limit=5 WEB_APACHE_SAMPLE | eval result = contains(agent, "Googlebot") | fields agent, result
   

2. Check whether the URI contains a specific path

   table limit=5 WEB_APACHE_SAMPLE | eval result = contains(uri, "/archives/") | fields uri, result
   

3. NULL input

   json "{'val': null}" | eval result = contains(val, "foo")
   | # result: false
   

Compatibility

The contains() function is available since before Sonar 4.0.