function to strip out matching value? vb Noob

[jobs]

I've got a string that will look like this:

zzz='hello',kkk='goodbye',jpjh='zz7t8d8',mary='Tha nk
You',jane='idontwantthis',somethingelse='nothinghe re'

It will have undefined number comma seperated tokens.

I want to write a VB function that when passed a matching left side
identifier, returns it's assigned value. If none match, returns "Error
No Match"

so myfunction("mary") should return "Thank You"

Thanks for any help or information!

[lord.zoltar]

On Feb 26, 12:13 pm, "jobs" <[e-mail]:

I've got a string that will look like this:

zzz='hello',kkk='goodbye',jpjh='zz7t8d8',mary='Tha nk
You',jane='idontwantthis',somethingelse='nothinghe re'

It will have undefined number comma seperated tokens.

I want to write a VB function that when passed a matching left side
identifier, returns it's assigned value. If none match, returns "Error
No Match"

so myfunction("mary") should return "Thank You"

Thanks for any help or information!

hmmm you could split the string based on the comma, then go through
each item that results from the split and split again on the "=". You
could use these splits to build a hash table where the left side of
"=" is the key and the right side is the value.
Then your function would take the key, look it up in the hash table
and return the value.

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Andersson?=]

jobs wrote:

I've got a string that will look like this:

zzz='hello',kkk='goodbye',jpjh='zz7t8d8',mary='Tha nk
You',jane='idontwantthis',somethingelse='nothinghe re'

It will have undefined number comma seperated tokens.

I want to write a VB function that when passed a matching left side
identifier, returns it's assigned value. If none match, returns "Error
No Match"

so myfunction("mary") should return "Thank You"

Thanks for any help or information!

I would create a regular expression from the identifier. The identifier
"mary" would give the regular expression "(?:^|,)mary='([^']*)'".

Dim data As String =
"zzz='hello',kkk='goodbye',jpjh='zz7t8d8',mary='Th ank
You',jane='idontwantthis',somethingelse='nothinghe re'"
Dim identifier As String = "mary"
Dim pattern As String = "(?:^|,)" & Regex.Escape(identifier) & "='([^']*)'"
Dim match As Match = Regex.Match(data, pattern)
Dim value As String
If match.Groups.Count = 2 Then
value = match.Groups(1).Value
Else
value = "Error No Match"
End If

--
Göran Andersson
_____
http://www.guffa.com

[jobs]

Thank you that's perfect!

[jobs]

hi.

sorry, my requirements are slightly different than expected. Not sure
if the spaces or special characters are the problem, but I need it
find identifiers like this as well:

Filename = 'd:\jcp\hellocpm.txt', Filename2 = 'd:\jcp\hellocpm.txt'

its reporting match group = 1 and not 2.

Thanks.

[jobs]

On Feb 26, 3:30 pm, "jobs" <[e-mail]:

hi.

sorry, my requirements are slightly different than expected. Not sure
if the spaces or special characters are the problem, but I need it
find identifiers like this as well:

Filename = 'd:\jcp\hellocpm.txt', Filename2 = 'd:\jcp\hellocpm.txt'

its reporting match group = 1 and not 2.

Thanks.

please disregard this.. I figured it out. thanks.