I am using a Match function in my program, its main purpose is to compare an input typed by the user and then loop into a database and do something every time there is a match.
Currently, I am working with this :
Function Match(searchStr As Variant, matchStr As Variant) As Boolean
Match = False
If (IsNull(searchStr) Or IsNull(matchStr)) Then Exit Function
If (matchStr = "") Or (searchStr = "") Then Exit Function
Dim f As Variant
f = InStr(1, CStr(searchStr), CStr(matchStr), vbTextCompare)
If IsNull(f) Then Exit Function
Match = f > 0
End Function
And then when it is used :
If Match(sCurrent.Range("A" & i).Value, cell.Value) Then
Here is my problem :
This is way too inaccurate. If I have in my database “Foxtrot Hotel”, this function will find a match whenever the user types “F” “Fo” “Fox” “ox” “xtro” “t hot” and so on, so whenever there is a string of character included in the complete sentence.
What I want is to make my Match function identify only complete words. So in this case, to reveal a match only for three specific cases : “Foxtrot” “Hotel” and “Foxtrot Hotel”.
I have read about an attribute called “lookat” which can do this kind of stuff with the Find function (lookat:=xlwhole), do you know if something similar can be inserted in my Match function?
Thanks !
You could use a regex like so. This one runs a case-insensitive match on whole words only (using word boundaries around the word being searched).
- False (fo is followed by a letter, not a word boundary)
- True
- True
- False (FOXTROT h not followed by a word boundary)
Find wont work with xlWhole for you – that will look to match the entire cell contents, not a single word within the contents.
Function WordMatch(searchStr As Variant, matchStr As Variant) As Boolean
Dim objRegex As Object
Set objRegex = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
With objRegex
.Pattern = "\b" & matchStr & "\b"
.ignorecase = True
WordMatch = .test(searchStr)
End With
Set objRegex = Nothing
End Function
Sub B()
Debug.Print WordMatch("foxtrot hotel", "fo")
Debug.Print WordMatch("foxtrot hotel", "hotel")
Debug.Print WordMatch("foxtrot hotel", "FOXTROT")
Debug.Print WordMatch("foxtrot hotel", "FOXTROT h")
End Sub
Tags: excel-vbaexcel, function, vba
