[RESOLVED] Autocomplete textbox

[Chris001]

Hi, I'm using the code below to create some sort of autocomplete textbox.

swords is an array with more than 100.000 words. Every time the user enters a letter into the textbox (txtWord), it loops though the swords array and uses the Like operator to find matching words and puts them into a listbox (lstWordCheck).

This works fine when the word starts with 'a', but when the word starts with 'z', then with every letter entered into the textbox, it has to loop all the way to the end of the array and that's very slow.

Is there a faster way to find matching words instead of having to loop always from the beginning?

Option Explicit
 
Private blnBackSpace As Boolean
 
Private Sub txtWord_Change()
    Dim i As Long
    Dim x As Long
    
    If Len(txtWord.Text) = 0 Then Exit Sub
    
    If blnBackSpace = True Then
        blnBackSpace = False
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    lstWordCheck.Clear
    
    For i = LBound(swords) To UBound(swords)
        If swords(i) Like txtWord.Text & "*" Then
            ListAddItem lstWordCheck, swords(i)
            x = x + 1
            If x = 100 Then Exit For
        End If
    Next i
End Sub
 
Private Sub txtWord_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
If KeyCode = vbKeyBack Or KeyCode = vbKeyDelete Then
    If Len(txtWord.Text) <> 0 Then
        blnBackSpace = True
    End If
End If
End Sub