how to check if a string contains only numeric numbers in vba - string

Question

I want to parse out the year info from a string like this one
$8995 Apr 18 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid $8995 (Orem) pic map cars & trucks - by owner
Since I retrieve this string online, sometimes the year element is not at the same place. The way I do it is to split the string by space using split function, then check if each node of the array contains only numeric digits.
However when i use the function IsNumeric, it also returns "$8995" node as true as well.
What is a good way to check if a string contains only numbers, no "$", no ".", not anything else?
Or in my situation, is there a better way to retrieve the year information?
Thanks.

Answer 1

This can be accomplished as a single line of code, using the Like operator
Function StringIsDigits(ByVal s As String) As Boolean
StringIsDigits = Len(s) And (s Like String(Len(s), "#"))
End Function

Answer 2

Will it be the case that all the strings with "years" will have substrings that look like dates? If that is the case, you could just cycle through the string looking for the first group of three that looks like a date, extracting the year from that:
Option Explicit
Function FindYear(S As String) As Long
Dim SS As Variant
Dim sDate As String
Dim I As Long, J As Long
SS = Split(S, " ")
For I = 0 To UBound(SS) - 2
sDate = ""
For J = 0 To 2
sDate = " " & sDate & " " & SS(I + J)
Next J
sDate = Trim(sDate)
If IsDate(sDate) Then
FindYear = Year(sDate)
Exit Function
End If
Next I
End Function

Answer 3

WIthout using Regular Expressions or some very complicated logic, it's going to be difficult to be perfect.
This code will return the pure numeric substrings, but in the case of your example it will return "18" and "2008". You could obviously try to add some more logic to disallow "18" (but allow "13" or "09", etc., but like I said that starts getting complicated. I am happy to help with that, but not knowing exactly what you want, I think it's best to leave that up to you for now.
Const str$ = "$8995 Apr 18 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid $8995 (Orem) pic map cars & trucks - by owner"
Option Explicit
Sub FindNumericValues()
Dim var() As String
Dim numbers As Variant
var = Split(str, " ")
numbers = GetNumerics(var)
MsgBox Join(numbers, ",")
End Sub
Function GetNumerics(words() As String) As Variant
Dim tmp() As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim n As Integer
Dim word As Variant
Dim bNumeric As Boolean
For Each word In words
n = 0
bNumeric = True
Do While n < Len(word)
n = n + 1
If Not IsNumeric(Mid(word, n, 1)) Then
bNumeric = False
Exit Do
End If
Loop
If bNumeric Then
ReDim Preserve tmp(i)
tmp(i) = word
i = i + 1
End If
Next
GetNumerics = tmp
End Function

Answer 4

You could parse the year out using RegEx:
Public Function GetYear(someText As String) As Integer
With CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
.Global = False
.MultiLine = False
.IgnoreCase = True
.Pattern = " [\d]{4} "
If .Test(testString) Then
GetYear = CInt(.Execute(testString)(0))
Else
GetYear = 9999
End If
End With
End Function
Example code:
Public Const testString As String = "$8995 Apr 18 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid $8995 (Orem) pic map cars & trucks - by owner "
Public Function GetYear(someText As String) As Integer
With CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
.Global = False
.MultiLine = False
.IgnoreCase = True
.Pattern = " [\d]{4} "
If .Test(testString) Then
GetYear = CInt(.Execute(testString)(0))
Else
GetYear = 9999
End If
End With
End Function
Sub Foo()
Debug.Print GetYear(testString) '// "2008"
End Sub