Display search text in text file with VBA Excel - excel

Question

I am new to VB and have a problem.
I have a text file named data.txt. It has 1 lines in it
IamanewstudentHeisanewstudentthestudentinthisclassisveryfunnythisuniversityhave300studentthestudentisveryfriendlywithnewcommer
I write a script which reads this text file and look for the string such as "stutent" and print all the "student" we can found in cell in excel (B1,C1,D1....). In this example we have 5 "student". It will display in cell B1,C1,D1,E1,F1 in sheet.
I tried till this point but it just give me only one "student" not five.
Sub SearchTextFile()
Const strFileName = "C:\data.txt"
Const strSearch = "student"
Dim strLine As String
Dim f As Integer
Dim lngLine As Long
Dim blnFound As Boolean
Dim lPosition As Long
f = FreeFile
Open strFileName For Input As #f
Do While Not EOF(f)
lngLine = lngLine + 1
Line Input #f, strLine
If InStr(1, strLine, strSearch, vbBinaryCompare) > 0 Then
blnFound = True
lPosition = InStr(1, strLine, strSearch, vbTextCompare)
MsgBox "Search string found" & strSearch, vbInformation
Exit Do
End If
Loop
Close #f
If Not blnFound Then
MsgBox "Search string not found", vbInformation
End If
End Sub

Answer 1

I would use RegEx to count the number of occurences in the line with the following function
Function noInStr(line As String, pattern As String) As Long
Dim regEx As Object, matches As Object
Set regEx = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
With regEx
.MultiLine = False
.Global = True
.IgnoreCase = True
.pattern = pattern
End With
Set matches = regEx.Execute(line)
noInStr = matches.count
End Function
You could use it in your code like that
Sub SearchTextFile()
Const strFileName = "C:\data.txt"
Const strSearch = "student"
Dim strLine As String
Dim f As Integer
Dim lngLine As Long
Dim blnFound As Boolean
Dim lPosition As Long
f = FreeFile
Open strFileName For Input As #f
Do While Not EOF(f)
lngLine = lngLine + 1
Line Input #f, strLine
Dim count As Long
count = noInStr(strLine, strSearch)
If count > 0 Then
blnFound = True
MsgBox "Search string found " & count & "- times: " & strSearch, vbInformation
Exit Do
End If
Loop
Close #f
If Not blnFound Then
MsgBox "Search string not found", vbInformation
End If
End Sub
If you also need the positions you could retrieve them with RegEx, too.
Update: This is how you could also retrieve the positions
Function colInStr(line As String, pattern As String) As Collection
Dim regEx As Object, matches As Object
Set regEx = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
With regEx
.MultiLine = False
.Global = True
.IgnoreCase = True
.pattern = pattern
End With
Set matches = regEx.Execute(line)
Dim col As New Collection
Dim i As Long
For i = 0 To matches.count - 1
col.Add matches(i).FirstIndex
Next i
Set colInStr = col
End Function
You also need to modify your code, below only the relevant part
Dim count As Long, col As Collection
Set col = colInStr(strLine, strSearch)
count = col.count
If count > 0 Then
blnFound = True
MsgBox "Search string found " & count & "- times: " & strSearch, vbInformation
Exit Do
End If
The positions are stored in the collection.

Answer 2

This will help find all the student strings and their right positions. I have commented my changes. I run the test using your file
Sub SearchTextFile()
Const strFileName = "C:\data.txt"
Const strSearch = "student"
Const strReplaceSearch = "tneduts"
Dim strLine As String
Dim f As Integer
Dim lngLine As Long
Dim blnFound As Boolean
Dim lPosition As Long
f = FreeFile
Open strFileName For Input As #f
Do While Not EOF(f)
lngLine = lngLine + 1
Line Input #f, strLine
'' For every line retreived, loop for all occurences of student
Do While (InStr(1, strLine, strSearch, vbBinaryCompare) > 0)
blnFound = True
lPosition = InStr(1, strLine, strSearch, vbTextCompare)
MsgBox "Search string found" & strSearch, vbInformation
'' remove the string student found and search for the next, we replace the word student with tneduts, that helps us keep the lPosition right
strLine = Replace(strLine, strSearch, strReplaceSearch, 1, 1)
Loop
Loop
Close #f
If Not blnFound Then
MsgBox "Search string not found", vbInformation
End If
End Sub