Extracting items from a string

Getting Started
1

I have been grappling with this problem all day, hopefully someone can help me with a code snippet or at least a pointer in the right direction.

I am trying to extract data from a string where the data required appears between two strings multiple times inside the source string,.

For example I would like to extract all occurrences of text from a string that appears between

and

where the number of occurrences is not predictable and the position of each occurrence is not predictable.

Any help would be appreciated.

2

here is a start

dim v() as string
v=split(yourstring,"<h3>")

this will return an array of every string segment that began with “

”
you will have to clean up the rest

3

That sounds like a reason to use Regular Expressions. I’m no RegEx expert, but Kem (who I call an expert) did a great webinar on RegEx a couple weeks ago:

Using Regular Expressions

4

dim s as string = "For example I would like to extract all occurrences of text from a string that appears between <h3> and </h3> where the number of occurrences is not predictable and the position of each occurrence is not predictable." dim v() as string dim fifi() as string dim occurrences() as string v=split(s,"<h3>") for i as integer = 0 to v.Ubound if instr(v(i),"</h3>")>0 then fifi = split(v(i),"</h3>") occurrences.append(fifi(0)) end if next msgbox(occurrences(0))

This will extract all occurrences and place them in the array occurrences(). You got the number of found occurrences as occurrences.ubound.

This short snippet ends with a msgbox that displays the first occurrence in your text :“and”.

5

Now wait for the wizard to appear : Kem as usual will come up with some wondrous cryptic magic :wink:

6

Thank you everyone for your assistance.

7 
dim rx as new RegEx
rx.SearchPattern = "(?Umsi)<h3>(.*)(?=</h3>)</h3>"

dm arr() as string
dim match as RegExMatch = rx.Search( sourceText )
while match <> nil
  arr.Append match.SubExpressionString( 1 )
  match = rx.Search
wend

The array arr will contain all the matches.