InStr not returning correct value

General
#1

When using InStr, if the source string contains a parenthesis or period, InStr returns 0.

For example:

dim source, sFind as string 
dim num as Integer
source = "Phillip (CPA)"
sFind = "cpa"
num = source.InStr(sFind)  //always returns 0

source = "Phillip (CPA)"
sFind = "phi"
num = source.InStr(sFind)  //returns 1

source = "15.38"
sFind = "15.38"
num = source.InStr(sFind)  //also always returns 0

source = "15.38"
sFind = "15"
num = source.InStr(sFind)  //returns 1

Is this the correct behavior of InStr?

Xojo 2018 r3 MacOS

#2

I have just tested your code with Xojo 2021 r1.1 (macOS) and it works correctly. It returned 10, 1, 1, 1.

#3

Now I tested it with Xojo 2018 r3 (macOS) and it worked correctly as well, it returned 10, 1, 1, 1.

#4

Check your code for invisible ascii character that might be throwing off the search, select a block of code, right click then Clean invisible ascii characters. This sometimes happens if you’re copy/pasting from another source.

#5

Did not know about the “clean invisible ascii characters”. It didn’t look like it did anything but funny thing, it seems to be working now.
I don’t remember pasting the code here, but gremlins are sneaky little buggers.
Thanks.

1 Like
#6

OK, so this is interesting. I made a request dialog with a TextArea and a default button. When I hit the button, the string passed is the correct length, but when I hit the Enter key, an additional character is added to the string passed which is why the InStr function was being thrown off.
Who knew?
I guess I have to add a Mask to the TextArea to filter out these characters.

#7

On a side note … InStr is a lot slower than Instr

#8

Really, there are two methods with the same name but a different ortograph ?

#9

The difference is API1 (Instr) and API2 (InStr)
There are other examples and feedback cases for this.

#10

API2 isnt IndexOf ?

2 Likes
#11

Sorry, my bad. That is correct. Need some sleep, I guess. :slight_smile:

But IndexOf is slower than Instr.