How to extract date time from an excel cell? - excel

Question

I have an excel file with cells containing some comments like:
txxxxx:10/15/2019 11:38:48 AM - Customer ID: xxxxx
) 1st contact - Text only sent to Mob TN xxxxxxw/Ref &TN
Txxxxxx:10/18/2019 1:34:12 PM -
Called BEST CBR xxxxxx, Spoke to Mr, he said they have been busy & unable to review/discuss yet. Offered to text him our direct info, they will check online &/or call us soon.
An SMS message has been successfully sent to Gull Family at xxxxxx
OK WITH FINAL CB next week.
The text could be anything potentially containing multiple date time fields.
I am trying to extract all such date occurrences from each cell and put them in different columns
I tried using =regExFind and =regExExtract. For instance:
=RegExFind($Cell,"\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}")
I also tried =Text($cell, dd/mm/yyyy)
However, neither approach is working.
Is there a way in excel to do a RegEx Extract and if so how to achieve that?
If not, what is the best way to extract all datetime fields?
UPDATE:
This is the code I have used:
Function RegexExtract(ByVal text As String, _
ByVal extract_what As String, _
Optional separator As String = ", ") As String
Dim allMatches As Object
Dim RE As Object
Set RE = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim result As String
RE.pattern = extract_what
RE.Global = True
Set allMatches = RE.Execute(text)
For i = 0 To allMatches.count - 1
For j = 0 To allMatches.Item(i).submatches.count - 1
result = result & (separator & allMatches.Item(i).submatches.Item(j))
Next
Next
If Len(result) <> 0 Then
result = Right$(result, Len(result) - Len(separator))
End If
RegexExtract = result
End Function
But no Output.

Answer 1

As your post is not very explicit, my answer can not be more too.
Try this one:
Dim regex As Object, str As String
Set regex = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
With regex
.Pattern = "([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)"
.Global = True
End With
str = "Whatever string you have"
Set matches = regex.Execute(str)
For Each match In matches
Debug.Print match.Value
Next match
So you will need to loop it in your range. str should be your cell on the loop and instead of Debug.Print you should bring this value to whatever cell like Worksheet("?").Cells(i,j).Value = match.Value.
Hope it helps

Answer 2

A bit of a workaround...instead of using RegEx the idea is to find the "AM"s and "PM"s in the cell and copy paste the string of 19/20 characters before them in the column "Date Extraction". One of the limitations of this method is clearly that could work only if AM and PM are always present in the date format of your messages.
Sub ExtractDates()
Dim myRange, cell As Range
Dim StringInCell, MyDate As String
Dim DateExtrColNum, i, j As Integer
Set myRange = Worksheets("YourSheetName").UsedRange
DateExtrColNum = myRange.Columns(myRange.Columns.Count).Column
Cells(1, DateExtrColNum + 1).Value = "Date Extraction"
j = 2
For Each cell In myRange
If Not cell.Find("AM") Is Nothing Or Not cell.Find("PM") Is Nothing Then
StringInCell = cell.Value
i = 1
Do While InStr(i, StringInCell, "AM") <> 0 Or InStr(i, StringInCell, "PM") <> 0
If InStr(i, StringInCell, "AM") <> 0 Then
MyDate = Mid(StringInCell, InStr(i, StringInCell, "AM") - 20, 20)
If InStr(1, MyDate, ":") = 1 Then
MyDate = Right(MyDate, 19)
End If
i = InStr(i, StringInCell, "AM") + 1
Else: MyDate = Mid(StringInCell, InStr(i, StringInCell, "PM") - 20, 20)
If InStr(1, MyDate, ":") = 1 Then
MyDate = Right(MyDate, 19)
End If
i = InStr(i, StringInCell, "PM") + 1
End If
Cells(j, DateExtrColNum + 1).Value = MyDate
j = j + 1
Loop
End If
Next
End Sub