VB InStr

[Nigel]

Hi,

I need to use VB to find the start (and end) postitions of a substring within a string.  I've tried using standard VB InStr as follows:

Dim justTheDates = wholeString.Substring(InStr(wholeString,"Created On"),InStr(wholeString, "EditBack"))

but all I get is a Test Studio error stating "'InStr' is not declared".

Unfortunately I can't get the information using just Test Studio script because the screen that holds the data I need is a legacy screen and doesn't follow good practice in terms of the HTML.  Long term it's on my radar to get that resolved, but for the present I can only capture the value of a whole Div into an extracted variable.  That variable contains a lot of text, but I have to grab two dates that are included.  I can't guarantee the format of the dates (depends on browser culture) so I need to extract them from the whole string.

Any ideas, please?

Thanks,
Nigel, Transition Computing.

[Anthony]

Hello Nigel,

Strings.InStr is a part of Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll. Have you added an assembly reference to it?

I'd advise using String.IndexOf and String.Substring which won't require an additional reference:

Dim full As String = "This entry was created on 1/1/2011 by User A."
Dim i As Integer = full.IndexOf("created on") + 11
Dim [date] As String = full.Substring(i, 8)

Log.WriteLine([date])

Which outputs the following to the log:

LOG: 1/1/2011

Regards,
Anthony
the Telerik team

[Nigel]

Well done and thanks once again, Anthony. Spot-on answers!  :)

[Nigel]

Actually, Anthony,  I have a follow-up question about VB Assembly Reference.

I've added a reference in Project Settings script options as: 
   Microsoft.VisualBasic, Version=10.0.0.0
Sourced from:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETFramework\v4.0\Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
In the Code Behind I've added:
   Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

At this point I was expecting that I could use a function like InStr(), as follows:

Dim x As String = "abc"
Dim y As String = InStr(x,"b")
Log.WriteLine("y = " + y.ToString())  'debug

but I still get Test Log error saying InStr is not declared.  Where have I gone wrong?

(I should point out that I am actually using String.IndexOf and String.Substring, as you recommended;  what I am doing now is trying to learn how to set up a connection to the VB .dll as a learning exercise.)

[Anthony]

Hello Nigel,

InStr() is part of Strings and returns an integer:

Dim x As String = "abc"
Dim i As Integer = Strings.InStr(x, "b")

Log.WriteLine(i.ToString())

Regards,
Anthony
the Telerik team

[Nigel]

Oh, of course!  Thanks for puting me straight on that, Anthony.  Efficient as always.