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Instr with wildcards

Instr with wildcards

The following routine is the same as the instr routine, but it accepts the "*" wildcard:

'Purpose     :  Same as Instr() but accepts the "*" wildcard.
'Inputs      :  sSearchText         The text to search in
'               sForText            The text to search for
'               [lStart]            The position of the first character to search on
'               [bCompareText]      If True, search is case insensitive
'Outputs     :  Returns the position of the match or zero if no match was found


Function Instr2(sSearchText As String, sForText As String, Optional ByVal lStart As Long = 1, Optional bCompareText As Boolean = False) As Long
    Dim lWildCardStartPos As Long, lWildCardPos As Long, lWildCardEndPos As Long
    Dim sSubtext As String, lCompare As Long
    
    'Set variables
    lWildCardStartPos = lStart
    If bCompareText Then
        lCompare = vbTextCompare
    Else
        lCompare = vbBinaryCompare
    End If
    
    Do
        'Search for wildcard
        lWildCardPos = InStr(lWildCardPos + 1, sForText, "*")
        If lWildCardPos Then
            lWildCardEndPos = lWildCardPos - 1
        Else
            lWildCardEndPos = Len(sForText)
        End If
        
        'Search input text
        sSubtext = Mid$(sForText, lWildCardStartPos, lWildCardEndPos - lWildCardStartPos + 1)
        lStart = InStr(lStart, sSearchText, sSubtext, lCompare)
        
        'Check exit conditions
        If lStart = 0 Then
            'Clear value and exit do
            Instr2 = 0
            Exit Do
        ElseIf Instr2 = 0 Then
            'Store value
            Instr2 = lStart
        End If
        If lWildCardPos = 0 Then
            Exit Do
        End If
        lWildCardStartPos = lWildCardPos + 1
    Loop
End Function