# Checking the position of a specific character or substring, within a string

The INDEX routine is easy to use along with a tJava component, to check whether a string contains a specified character or substring:

```
System.out.println(StringHandling.INDEX("hello world!", "hello"));
System.out.println(StringHandling.INDEX("hello world!", "world")); 
System.out.println(StringHandling.INDEX("hello world!", "!")); 
System.out.println(StringHandling.INDEX("hello world", "?"));
```

The routine returns a whole number which indicates the position of the first character specified, or indeed the first character of the substring specified. Otherwise, -1 is returned if no occurrences are found.

![The result is 0, 6, 11, and -1 in the Run view.](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/studio-user-guide/Resources/images/Routines6_c.png)