Functions

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Tue 8 Jun 2021, 08:07 Delegate Jo said...

Jo has attended:
Excel VBA Introduction course
Excel VBA Intermediate course

Functions

Is there a code for finding a word or phrase in a string of text? In an excel formula you could use "*word required*", would this work in a VBA function?

Tue 8 Jun 2021, 12:07 Trainer Jens said...

RE: functions

Hi Jo,

Thank you for the forum question and thank for the nice feedback. I am happy that the course was useful.

We have a VBA function which can find a word or a phrase in a text string.

The InStr function.

See syntax and explanation below.

Syntax of InStr Function
InStr( [Start], String1, String2, [Compare] )

[Start] – (optional argument) this is an integer value that tells the InStr function the starting position from which it should start looking. For example, if I want the search to start from the beginning, I will enter the value as 1. If I want it to begin with the third character onwards, I will use 3. If omitted, the default value of 1 is taken.

String1 – This is the main string (or the parent string) in which you want to search. For example, if you’re looking for the position of x in Excel, String 1 would be “Excel”.
String2 – This is the substring that you are searching for. For example, if you’re looking for the position of x in Excel, String2 would be x.

[Compare] – (optional argument) You can specify one the following three values for [compare] argument:

vbBinaryCompare – This would do a character by character comparison. For example, if you’re looking for ‘x’ in ‘Excel’, it will return 2, but if you’re looking for ‘X’ in ‘Excel’, it will return 0 as X is in upper case. You can also use 0 instead of

vbBinaryCompare. If the [Compare] argument is omitted, this is the taken as default.

vbTextCompare – This would do a textual comparison. For example, if you look for ‘x’ or ‘X’ in Excel, it would return 2 in both the cases. This argument ignores the letter case. You can also use 1 instead of vbTextCompare.

vbDatabaseCompare – This is used for Microsoft Access only. It uses the information in the database to perform the comparison. You can also use 2 instead of vbDatabaseCompare.

Kind regards

Jens Bonde
Microsoft Office Specialist Trainer

Tel: 0207 987 3777
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Tue 15 Jun 2021, 13:36 Delegate Jo said...

RE: functions

Thanks Jens,

I'll try it out and see how it goes!

Regards,

Jo

Tue 15 Jun 2021: Automatically marked as resolved.

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Using the Quick Access Toolbar in Excel2010

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