The FILE_SEARCH user routine allows an application to replace the TPU$FILE_SEARCH routine with its own file-searching routine. The calling program passes the address of the routine to the TPU$INITIALIZE routine using the TPU$_FILE_SEARCH item code. When the DECTPU built-in procedure FILE_SEARCH is called from TPU code, DECTPU calls either the user-written FILE_SEARCH routine (if one was passed to TPU$INITIALIZE) or the TPU$FILE_SEARCH routine. The return value of the built-in procedure is the string returned in the result-string argument. To ensure proper operation of the user's ON_ERROR handlers, errors in the user-written FILE_PARSE routine should be signaled using the TPU$SIGNAL routine.