Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2008

title:
Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. descrip:
One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com

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URLs I want to remember:
* Atari 2600 programming on your Mac	* joel on software (tip pt)
* resume, mostly for Google	* Regular Expression Introduction (copy)
* gpl xbrowser API for dhtml	* mulder (old css tutorial)
* Using CommonDialog in VB 6	* Free zip utils
* that hardware vendor review site I forget about is here	* Javascript 1.5 ref
* Read the bits about the zone	* w3c.org index of HTML 4.01 elements
* Mozilla COM control	* Quick intro to Javascript
* Editable Firefox Page	* Parsing str's in VB6
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Thursday, December 04, 2008

Parsing strings in VB 6

I don't know why, but when I need to code something ugly and quickly, I use VB6. When I need to parse lines, I use String functions instead of regexps. I tell myself it's because it's hard to anticipate how flawed, complicated regexps might work. This is true. Not a good excuse, but it's true. regexps can be difficult to debug.

Still, there's something I freakin' always screw up, and that's finding a substring in a line and cutting it into two. So here's some code for idiots that are me.

    Dim strTest As String
    Dim strToFind As String
    
    strTest = "this is a long line of words"
    strToFind = "long"
    
    Debug.Print "#" & InStr(strTest, strToFind) & "#"
    Debug.Print "#" & Left(strTest, InStr(strTest, strToFind)) & "#"
    Debug.Print "#" & Right(strTest, Len(strTest) - InStr(strTest, strToFind)) & "#"
    Debug.Print
    Debug.Print "#" & Left(strTest, InStr(strTest, strToFind) - 1) & "#"
    Debug.Print "#" & Right(strTest, Len(strTest) - (InStr(strTest, strToFind) + Len(strToFind))) & "#"

Here's our result:
#11# #this is a l# #ong line of words# #this is a # #line of words#

I don't know why, but I get more OBO errors doing this than I can stand.

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Now playing: The Black Crowes - Cursed Diamond

Labels: code, vb6

posted by ruffin at 12/04/2008 11:52:00 PM

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