Using Excel's find and searching by 2 strings - excel

Question

I need your help,
Is it possible to search an Excel spreadsheet based on 2 given values, as opposed to just 1? similar to that of an "AND" operator?
Here's what I have so far, but I guess if your looking for a needle in a hay stack:
Str = "apples" AND "oranges"
With Sheets(xSheet)
Set foundCell = .Cells.Find(What:=Str, After:=.Cells(1, 1), _
LookIn:=xlValues, LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False)
End With

Answer 1

The code below returns the wanted result:
Sub TestMe()
Dim str As String: str = "apples*oranges"
Dim foundCell As Range
Dim options As Variant
options = Array(str, Split(str, "*")(1) & "*" & Split(str, "*")(0))
Dim myVar As Variant
For Each myVar In options
With Worksheets(1)
Set foundCell = .Cells.Find(What:=myVar, After:=.Cells(1, 1), _
LookIn:=xlValues, LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False)
End With
If Not foundCell Is Nothing Then Exit For
Next myVar
If Not foundCell Is Nothing Then
Debug.Print foundCell.Address
End If
End Sub
We have two different strings that need to be seaerched for: "apples*oranges" and "oranges*apples". The split and the reverse is done pretty primitively:
options = Array(str, Split(str, "*")(1) & "*" & Split(str, "*")(0))
And then, using a For Each Loop with an early Exit For, the .Find() searches for the two strings.

Answer 2

Here is a simple loop alternative:
Sub ApplesAndOranges()
Dim r As Range, fruits As Range
Set fruits = Nothing
For Each r In ActiveSheet.UsedRange
v = r.Value
If v <> "" Then
If InStr(v, "apples") <> 0 And InStr(v, "oranges") <> 0 Then
If fruits Is Nothing Then
Set fruits = r
Else
Set fruits = Union(fruits, r)
End If
End If
End If
Next
MsgBox fruits.Address(0, 0)
End Sub
From the example, you see it returns all cells that contain both sub-strings.