Searching a string array

[AaronL]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone could help me. Here is the situation:

I have an array of strings lets say from 1 to 1000. I want to write a function that allows the user to search for certain text in that array, and populate the results in a list box. Just like your standard search engine, given the option to put & for multiple words etc... I know it involves the InStr() function, but I'm unsure of the actual logic of the code I will want to use.

Thanks!

[VBWheaties]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone could help me. Here is the situation:

I have an array of strings lets say from 1 to 1000. I want to write a function that allows the user to search for certain text in that array, and populate the results in a list box. Just like your standard search engine, given the option to put & for multiple words etc... I know it involves the InStr() function, but I'm unsure of the actual logic of the code I will want to use.

Thanks!

Heres two functions that should give you an idea of how I would do it.
You can pass in 1 or more strings in FindStrings.
For each value in the Paramarray, call IsInArray to return a boolean if the string exists in the array.

Public Function FindStrings(ParamArray Searches() As String) As Boolean
   Dim i As Integer
   For i = 0 to UBOUND(Searches) - 1
      If IsInArray(Searches(i)) = FALSE Then 
         FindStrings = False
         Exit Function 
      End If 
   Next 
   FindStrings = True
End Function 
Public Function IsInArray(szSearch As String) as Boolean
   'ToDo: Write code to iterate array and look for szSearch. 
End Function

[Killer42]

Whether you use the Instr() function or not depends on the type of match you're looking for. If you only want to check an entire string to see whether it matches, you would just use the = operator. If you want to see whether your string appears anywhere within another string, then you would probably use Instr() to test it.

On the other hand, you might use the Like operator to allow wildcard matching. Have a look at this example...
[CODE=vb]Dim a As String, b As String, c As String
a = "ABCDEFG"
b = "ABC*"
c = "ABC"
Debug.Print "B:"; (a Like b)
Debug.Print "C:"; (a Like c)
[/CODE]