Visual Basic Programming Code Examples

Visual Basic > Strings Code Examples

Finding the position of the first character from a list of characters



Finding the position of the first character from a list of characters

The code below is useful when you want to find the position of first character from a list of characters within a string. This would typically be used when looking for carriage returns, eg:

    Debug.Print StringFirstFirstChars(sSearch,vbNewline,vbCr,vbLf)

The code below is useful when you want to find the position of first character from a list of characters within a string. This would typically be used when looking for carriage returns, eg:

    Debug.Print StringFirstFirstChars(sSearch,vbNewline,vbCr,vbLf)

'Purpose     :  Finds the position of the first character found in a string from a list of characters.
'Inputs      :  sSearchIn           The string to search for the first instance of a character from the character list
'               avChars             The list of characters to search through "sSearchIn" for
'Outputs     :  Returns the position of first instance of a character found in a string from the list of supplied characters,
'               or zero if none of the characters are found
'Example     :  If your wanted to find a line feed, you might use:
'               Debug.Print StringFindFirstChar("ABCDEF","B","E","F")
'               'This would return 2, i.e. the position of character "B"
'Revisions   :

Function StringFindFirstChar(sSearchIn As String, ParamArray avChars() As Variant) As Long
    Dim lPosChar As Long, lPosTest As Long, vChar As Variant
    
    On Error GoTo ErrFailed
    If Len(sSearchIn) Then
        For Each vChar In avChars
            lPosTest = InStr(1, sSearchIn, CStr(vChar))
            If lPosTest Then
                If lPosChar = 0 Then
                    lPosChar = lPosTest
                ElseIf lPosTest < lPosChar Then
                    lPosChar = lPosTest
                End If
            End If
        Next
    End If
    StringFindFirstChar = lPosChar
    Exit Function

ErrFailed:
    Debug.Print Err.Description
    Debug.Assert False
    'Try the next line
    Resume Next
End Function