fish-shell/doc_src/cmds/contains.rst

.. _cmd-contains:

contains - test if a word is present in a list
==============================================

Synopsis
--------

.. synopsis::

    contains [OPTIONS] KEY [VALUES ...]

Description
-----------

``contains`` tests whether the set *VALUES* contains the string *KEY*.
If so, ``contains`` exits with code 0; if not, it exits with code 1.

The following options are available:

**-i** or **--index**
    Print the index (number of the element in the set) of the first matching element.

**-h** or **--help**
    Displays help about using this command.

Note that ``contains`` interprets all arguments starting with a **-** as an option to ``contains``, until an **--** argument is reached.

See the examples below.

Example
-------

If *animals* is a list of animals, the following will test if *animals* contains "cat":

::

    if contains cat $animals
       echo Your animal list is evil!
    end


This code will add some directories to :envvar:`PATH` if they aren't yet included:

::

    for i in ~/bin /usr/local/bin
        if not contains $i $PATH
            set PATH $PATH $i
        end
    end


While this will check if function ``hasargs`` is being ran with the **-q** option:

::

    function hasargs
        if contains -- -q $argv
            echo '$argv contains a -q option'
        end
    end


The **--** here stops ``contains`` from treating **-q** to an option to itself.
Instead it treats it as a normal string to check.