# .at("keyword")

Extracts a value from a list of keyword-value pairs in which the keyword and value are separated by colons. For example, suppose

`$MyString = "USA: North America; Canada: North America; France: Europe; Japan: Asia; default: unknown"`

Then

`$MyString.at("France") ==> "Europe"` `$MyString.at("Canada" => "North America"`

The special keyword "default" applies to any keyword not contained in the list. For convenience, when several keywords have the same value they may be separated by pipe characters “|”:

`"USA | Canada: North America; …"`

The at("keyword") operator or Lookup Table can often replace complex conditional logic. For example, if $Continents(/config) contains the string

`"USA: North America; Canada: North America; France: Europe; Japan: Asia; default: unknown"`

The we can simply write:

`$MyContinent = $Continents(/config).at($Country)`

rather than the long and error-prone

`if ($Country=="USA"){$MyContinent="North America"} else {if ($Country=="Canada") ……`