Parsing Strings - Dev Hardware

Dev Hardware Forums Sponsor:

Trader Rating: 0 · #1

January 2nd, 2007, 02:22 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Parsing Strings

I currently have some text in a multiline textbox, how can the the following code be adapted to parse characters 3 to 8 on line 1 of the textbox. Then characters 2 to 6 on line to of the text box, and store both extracted strings in two separate variables.

The following code extracts from line 1 then store the extracted string inside sMidText

vb Code:

Original - vb Code
Dim sText As String Dim sMidText As String sText = text1.text sMidText = Mid$(sText, 3, 8) Debug.Print sMidText

Dim sText As String
Dim sMidText As String
 
sText = text1.text
sMidText = Mid$(sText, 3, 8)
Debug.Print sMidText

Many Thanks,

Last edited by Nilpo : February 8th, 2007 at 01:18 AM.

Trader Rating: 2 · #2

January 2nd, 2007, 06:45 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Dev Hardware God 1st Plane (5500 - 5999 posts)

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Folding Points: 214558 Folding Title: Super Ultimate Folder - Level 1

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

Basically, you use the Split function to separate your string at newline characters. This results in an array containing one substring for each line. You finish up by parsing each line for the requested characters with the Mid function.

vb Code:

Original - vb Code

Dim sText As String
Dim line1 As String
Dim line2 As String
Dim seg1 As String
Dim seg2 As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer
 
sText = text1.text
 
' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, "\n")
 
' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)
 
' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, "\n", -1, 1)
 
line1 = arrText(0)
line2 = arrText(1)
 
' Parse our lines
seg1 = Mid(line1, 3, 6)
seg2 = Mid(line2, 2, 5)

__________________

Don't like me? Click it.

Scripting problems? Windows questions? Ask the Windows Guru!

Stay up to date with all of my latest content. Follow me on Twitter!

Help us help you! Post your exact error message with these easy tips!

Last edited by Nilpo : February 8th, 2007 at 12:47 AM.

Trader Rating: 0 · #3

January 2nd, 2007, 06:56 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilpo

Code:

Dim sText As String
Dim line1 As String
Dim line2 As String
Dim seg1 As String
Dim seg2 As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer

sText = text1.text

' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, "\n")

' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)

' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, "\n", -1, 1)

line1 = arrText(0)
line2 = arrText(1)

' Parse our lines
seg1 = Mid(line1, 3, 6)
seg2 = Mid(line2, 2, 5)

How come when the above code is pasted into Visual Basic 6.0, i get a "Subscript out of range" error message. (problem item shown in bold above)

Many Thanks,

Trader Rating: 2 · #4

January 2nd, 2007, 07:04 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salchester

How come when the above code is pasted into Visual Basic 6.0, i get a "Subscript out of range" error message. (problem item shown in bold above)

Many Thanks,

That would indicate that your array doesn't have that many elements. That means one of two things: either sText doesn't contain multiple lines, or it's not using the \n newline character. In this case, most likely the second. Try this:

vb Code:

Original - vb Code

Dim sText As String
Dim line1 As String
Dim line2 As String
Dim seg1 As String
Dim seg2 As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer
 
sText = text1.text
 
' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, vbNewLine)
 
' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)
 
' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, vbNewLine, -1, 1)
 
line1 = arrText(0)
line2 = arrText(1)
 
' Parse our lines
seg1 = Mid(line1, 3, 6)
seg2 = Mid(line2, 2, 5)

Last edited by Nilpo : February 8th, 2007 at 12:48 AM.

Trader Rating: 2 · #5

January 2nd, 2007, 07:07 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

You can cut this code down considerably, but I wanted to demonstrate the thought process behind it.

Trader Rating: 0 · #6

January 2nd, 2007, 07:19 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

I currently have the following information a text box:

Date: 12/12/06
Name: Bill
Age: 19

How can the data after each field be extracted, and store in a text file. To result in the text file containing only (12/12/06, Bill, 19 etc)

The data after the fields changes i.e. (12/12/06, Bill, 19 etc).

Trader Rating: 2 · #7

January 2nd, 2007, 07:25 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salchester

Okay, we were dealing with that in another thread. Is this the same question? (And you can do it with the above code)

Trader Rating: 0 · #8

January 2nd, 2007, 07:28 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilpo

Okay, we were dealing with that in another thread. Is this the same question? (And you can do it with the above code)

Sort of, how does the code need to be adapted?

Many Thanks, much appreciated

Trader Rating: 2 · #9

January 2nd, 2007, 07:56 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

Well, if you don't need to preserve the existing lines, this can be done a lot easier like this:

(I'm assuming that the beginning of the email could have multiple lines, so I'm counting backwards. This assumes that the 3 fields we want are always listed LAST)

vb Code:

Original - vb Code

Dim sText As String
Dim sDate As String
Dim sName As String
Dim sAge As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer
 
sText = text1.text
 
' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, vbNewLine)
 
' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)
 
' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, vbNewLine, -1, 1)
 
' Pull the last 3 strings from our array
sDate = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 3)
sName = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 2)
sAge = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 1)
 
' Search for all characters after the : and then trim any extraneous spaces
sDate = Trim(Right(sDate, Len(sDate) - InStr(sAge, ":")))
sName = Trim(Right(sName, Len(sName) - InStr(sName, ":")))
sAge = Trim(Right(sAge, Len(sAge) - InStr(sAge, ":")))

It would probably be more efficient to create a function for all of the string parsing. You could also save some effort by reversing the strings and using the Left function instead, but again, I wanted to demonstrate the actual thought process involved.

Last edited by Nilpo : February 8th, 2007 at 12:49 AM.

Trader Rating: 0 · #10

January 2nd, 2007, 08:06 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilpo

Code:

Dim sText As String
Dim sDate As String
Dim sName As String
Dim sAge As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer

sText = text1.text

' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, vbNewLine)

' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)

' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, vbNewLine, -1, 1)

' Pull the last 3 strings from our array
sDate = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 3)
sName = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 2)
sAge = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 1)

' Search for all characters after the : and then trim any extraneous spaces
sDate = Trim(Right(sDate, Len(sDate) - InStr(sAge, ":")))
sName = Trim(Right(sName, Len(sName) - InStr(sName, ":")))
sAge = Trim(Right(sAge, Len(sAge) - InStr(sAge, ":")))

How do you save the extracted data into a textfile?

Many Thanks, much appreciated!

Trader Rating: 2 · #11

January 2nd, 2007, 08:08 PM

Nilpo

Windows Guru™

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Salem, OH

Posts: 5,673

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 1 Week 5 Days 20 h 1 m 5 sec
Reputation Power: 8888

How do you want your text file formatted? Plain text, CSV? Give me a sample of what a text file output should look like.

Trader Rating: 0 · #12

January 2nd, 2007, 08:13 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

What is CSV?

Is there anyway of making the file unreadable, via storing the data as binary etc.

Many Thanks, much appreciated!

Trader Rating: 0 · #13

January 2nd, 2007, 08:14 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Is there anyway you could comment you code, in order for me to work out how it all works, and what values are going in to where?

Many Thanks,

Trader Rating: 0 · #14

January 2nd, 2007, 08:31 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilpo

Code:

Dim sText As String
Dim sDate As String
Dim sName As String
Dim sAge As String
Dim arrText() As String
Dim count As Integer

sText = text1.text

' Get line count
count = InStr(sText, vbNewLine)

' Size our dynamic array
ReDim arrText(count + 1)

' Split our text string into an array housing individual lines
arrText = Split(sText, vbNewLine, -1, 1)

' Pull the last 3 strings from our array
sDate = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 3)
sName = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 2)
sAge = arrText(Ubound(arrText) - 1)

' Search for all characters after the : and then trim any extraneous spaces
sDate = Trim(Right(sDate, Len(sDate) - InStr(sAge, ":")))
sName = Trim(Right(sName, Len(sName) - InStr(sName, ":")))
sAge = Trim(Right(sAge, Len(sAge) - InStr(sAge, ":")))

With text1 containing:

Date: 12/12/06
Name: Bill
Age: 19

the date, name, and age returned is as follows:

: 12/12/06
Bill
19

is there anyway of extracting the date, with ": " before it?

Many Thanks, much appreciated!

Trader Rating: 0 · #15

January 2nd, 2007, 08:39 PM

Salchester

Contributing User

Join Date: Aug 2005

Posts: 293

Time spent in forums: 1 Day 23 h 37 m 7 sec
Reputation Power: 5

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention, the information currently in the textbox is actually the following, including line breaks:

<Name Field> has sent the following information:

Date: 12/12/06
Name: Bill
Age: 19

What needs to be changed in the code now to ignore <Name Field> has sent the following information: and the two line breaks?

Sorry, Many Thanks, much appreciated!!!! :-)

Last edited by Salchester : January 2nd, 2007 at 08:53 PM.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread: