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Please tell me there is a shorter/cleaner way? Basically if ! is in a text box or string.... let the msgbox come up.
For FindCommand = 1 To Len(StringName)
If Mid$(StringName, FindCommand, Len("!")) = "!" Then
msgbox "It's In there!"
Exit For
End If
Next FindCommand
If InStr(StringName, "!") > 0 Then
MsgBox "It's In there!"
End If
How about this?
Dim SearchString, SearchChar, MyPos
SearchString ="XX!XX" ' String to search in.
SearchChar = "!" ' Search for "!".
' A textual comparison starting at position 1. Returns 3.
MyPos = Instr(1, SearchString, SearchChar, 1)
Well the whole point was to make it shorter... and Tugur your's worked fine! Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
but theyre both the same ?????????????
You could also use the Like operator.
Code:If StringName Like "*!*" Then Msgbox "StringName contains '!'"
If it matters, InStr is much faster than Like.
GetTickCount (API): InStr = 0 Like = 25 [milliseconds]
Timer (function): InStr = 0 Like = 0 [seconds]
QueryPerformanceCounter (API):
InStr - 0.4063
Like - 0.3523
Difference is 0.054 miliseconds
But in some cases, InStr is faster.
So I'm unsure, just givin' you some results from testin' it though :rolleyes:.
Here's my test:
Start a new project and put a command button on the form. Then put this code in the Click event of the command button:
As far as I know, there are no errors in that test code. It shows InStr to be consistently faster than Like.Code:Dim ISt As Single, IE As Single
Dim LSt As Single, LE As Single
Dim B As Boolean
Dim I As Long
Const Times = 1000000
Dim TestStr As String
TestStr = "hi!"
Me.AutoRedraw = True
Me.FontName = "Fixedsys"
ISt = Timer
For I = 1 To Times
B = InStr(TestStr, "!") > 0
Next I
IE = Timer
LSt = Timer
For I = 1 To Times
B = TestStr Like "*!*"
Next I
LE = Timer
Cls
Print "InStr: "; vbTab; IE - ISt
Print "Like: "; vbTab; LE - LSt
While Like may be slightly slower, it's the prefered method for pattern matching, whereas InStr is prefered for searching.
I would say that in this case we're searching for an exclamation point and showing a messagebox if it is found.
You can make Like search for anything by putting *'s around it, but InStr is better suited for the task.
Actually Tygur, I believe it's best suited for the job.
fallnwrld says himself, "Please tell me there is a shorter/cleaner way? Basically if ! is in a text box or string.... let the msgbox come up."
So he just wants to see if an exclamation exists in the Textbox, not find the location of where it is in the Textbox.
Just a couple statements:
I hardly believe searching for an exclamation point is pattern matching.
InStr does the job quicker. Therefore it must be more set for the task than Like.
Just because InStr gives more information does not make it worse. I don't know where you get that from..
If the speed doesn't matter, it just comes down to personal preference. I think InStr is more readable and I know it's faster, so I prefer InStr.
Just real quickly see which one is faster for searching on a textbox.Quote:
Originally posted by Tygur
Just a couple statements:
I think InStr is more readable and I know it's faster, so I prefer InStr.
Code:Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim ISt As Single, IE As Single
Dim LSt As Single, LE As Single
Dim B As Boolean
Dim I As Long
Const Times = 1000000
Dim TestStr As String
Text1.Text = "hi!"
Me.AutoRedraw = True
Me.FontName = "Fixedsys"
ISt = Timer
For I = 1 To Times
B = InStr(Text1.Text, "!") > 0
Next I
IE = Timer
LSt = Timer
For I = 1 To Times
B = Text1.Text Like "*!*"
Next I
LE = Timer
Cls
Print "InStr: "; vbTab; IE - ISt
Print "Like: "; vbTab; LE - LSt
End Sub
Like is almost twice as fast as InStrQuote:
Originally posted by Tygur
and I know it's faster, so I prefer InStr.
I get the same resultQuote:
Originally posted by Megatron
Like is almost twice as fast as InStr
I just copied and ran the code posted by rickm. It showed InStr to be faster for me. I have no idea why it would show Like to be faster (let alone almost twice as fast) on another computer.
I dont either but when i run my code i get consistently that like is faster, when i run your code i dont consistently get any particular result, but Matthew Gates' testing suggests that Like is faster as well, and Megatron is a freakin genius so he probably actually just knows which one is faster.Quote:
Originally posted by Tygur
I just copied and ran the code posted by rickm. It showed InStr to be faster for me. I have no idea why it would show Like to be faster (let alone almost twice as fast) on another computer.
As a completely impartial view I also ran the above code and got the following result:
InStr: 10.62891
Like: 11.375
This is on an intel celeron 533mhz
IUnknown
Im running on 1.3 GHz, dont know if it makes a difference, i have 800MHz at home, ill try it there.Quote:
Originally posted by IUnknown
As a completely impartial view I also ran the above code and got the following result:
InStr: 10.62891
Like: 11.375
This is on an intel celeron 533mhz
IUnknown
rickm,
1.3 Ghz what? What's the processor? I doubt the clock speed means anything, but the processor might.
These are my results on a 900 Mhz Athlon:
InStr: 4.617188
Like: 4.707031
InStr is consistently faster every time I run it.
Also, if Megatron does "just know", it's probably because he found out the same way we're trying right now.
I tried it on a 1.3GHz P4 at work, and a 1.2GHz Athlon at home. Both say like is faster, and both are faster on the athlon machine.
In this particular situation which of course is a matter of life and death, I am with Tygur, the like operator is twice as slow as instr(), here is the test:
VB Code:
Run on a PIII
again, try the textboxQuote:
Originally posted by Nucleus
In this particular situation which of course is a matter of life and death, I am with Tygur, the like operator is twice as slow as instr(), here is the test:
VB Code:
Run on a PIII
run on a Duron 800Code:Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim start As Double, test As String
test = test & String(25000000, "7")
test = test & "!"
Text1.Text = test
start = GetTickCount
Debug.Print "instr: " & InStr(1, Text1.Text, "!")
Debug.Print "instr: " & GetTickCount - start
start = GetTickCount
Debug.Print "like: " & Text1.Text Like "*!*"
Debug.Print "like: " & GetTickCount - start
End Sub
rickm, the text box should have no impact on the relative speed of Instr() vs like.
Out of interest when you ran the code I posted what were your results?
Right On Nuc,
Textbox.text extracts the contents to temporary string.
That OO. Nothing "operates" on the contents of an object
except through the object's methods. In this case, .text is
a Get property for the contents. Instr and the like never see
the object whence the string came.
Also, for those who get faster times on Like I hope they were not
testing with an Instr(str,"!",vbTextCompare). I'm not sure of the effect of vbTextCompare on Instr even though the search character is not an alpha. Perhaps we could get timings on that. I'm going to loop it right now.
Tested in the IDE. 700mz HP Celeron
7/11/2001 2:26:45 AM NoTextcompareCode:Dim I As Long
Dim J As Long
strResponse = Space(1000) & "!"
Debug.Print Now & " NoTextcompare"
For I = 1 To 500000
J = InStr(1, strResponse, "!")
Next
Debug.Print Now & " Textcompare"
For I = 1 To 500000
J = InStr(1, strResponse, "!", vbTextCompare)
Next
Debug.Print Now & " Like"
For I = 1 To 500000
blnOK = (strResponse Like "*!*")
Next
Debug.Print Now
7/11/2001 2:26:48 AM Textcompare
7/11/2001 2:28:07 AM Like
7/11/2001 2:28:11 AM
Dropped vbTextCompare, bump times to 10,000,000 and
put "!" the middle where Instr would stop but Like wouldn't.
gotCode:Dim I As Long
Dim J As Long
strResponse = Space(500) & "!" & Space(500)
Debug.Print Now & " NoTextcompare"
For I = 1 To 10000000
J = InStr(1, strResponse, "!")
Next
Debug.Print Now & " Like"
For I = 1 To 10000000
blnOK = (strResponse Like "*!*")
Next
Debug.Print Now
7/11/2001 2:32:41 AM NoTextcompare
7/11/2001 2:33:20 AM Like
7/11/2001 2:34:01 AM
I call the whole thing a tie on my machine.
John I get different results for different compare methods which you correctly raised a factor which impacts on speed.
I found binary compare being the fastest, but instr() consistently outperforms like operator under all compare methods :confused:.
VB Code:
At roughly 250 nanosecs per Instr or Like, I'm not going to lose
any sleep over the difference.:)
Either beats the hell out of For, If Mid$(), Next. There used to be
a big arg over FOR-NEXT vs DO-LOOP with DO-LOOP winning but
that was VB3 on 75mz machines.
Using the code above i got the following results.
instr no compare method: 25000001
instr no compare method: 11797
instr binary compare: 25000001
instr binary compare: 390
instr text compare: 25000001
instr text compare: 25096
True
like: 34029
aturner,
That looks very similar to the results I get too.
well it was your code
Yeah, I guess I was surprised as there seems to be a lot of variation from pc to pc.
How fast is binary compare!
Quote:
Originally posted by Nucleus
rickm, the text box should have no impact on the relative speed of Instr() vs like.
Out of interest when you ran the code I posted what were your results?
with your code they were tied, with mine, like was about twice as fast.
The difference between vbTextCompare and vbBinaryCompare as far as i know has much to do with whether your search is case sensitive or not.Quote:
Originally posted by John Yingling
Right On Nuc,
Textbox.text extracts the contents to temporary string.
That OO. Nothing "operates" on the contents of an object
except through the object's methods. In this case, .text is
a Get property for the contents. Instr and the like never see
the object whence the string came.
Also, for those who get faster times on Like I hope they were not
testing with an Instr(str,"!",vbTextCompare). I'm not sure of the effect of vbTextCompare on Instr even though the search character is not an alpha. Perhaps we could get timings on that. I'm going to loop it right now.
Here are my results for InStr() vs Like. Add it to a Form with a TextBox and a CommandButton. The results will be printed in the debug window.
I have a 500Mhz, and I get results in the 600s for InStr, and 300s for Like.
VB Code:
To keep God "i mean megatron" happy i did what he said.
P3 500, 128Mb NT4 sp6 VB6 studio patch 5
Like 491
InStr 1042
Megatron
Appologies for being hassled by a newbie...
Why is the loop there??
lol ;)
The loop is there so we would loop though the code many times, hence we'll get a more accurate result. 200 times is more percise than just once.
simple question, simple answer
OK, i get 0 for both of them at 250 times, but at 10000000 times i getQuote:
Originally posted by aturner
To keep God "i mean megatron" happy i did what he said.
P3 500, 128Mb NT4 sp6 VB6 studio patch 5
Like 491
InStr 1042
instr() = 7851
like = 6789
i dont want to sound patronising but i got a result of 0 until i read the rem statement and un-commented the code
no, it wasnt that, i think it may be that i am running on a 1.3GHz machine with 256MB ram. Nice to work for a company that has good computers....
Due to the differences in architecture in systems, with intel having the advantage with floating point and all that crap, i realy dont think we are going to get a definative answer.
My opinion is that we should agree to dissagree and that different system specs will always change the outcome.
At work i have a 1.3GHz P4 system with 256MB Ram, at home a 1.2GHz Athlon system with 128 MB Ram. the Athlon not only kicks butt in a benchmark, but is way faster in both of these tests. I get roughly the same results on both of them. (as far as the difference between like and instr())Quote:
Originally posted by aturner
Due to the differences in architecture in systems, with intel having the advantage with floating point and all that crap, i realy dont think we are going to get a definative answer.
My opinion is that we should agree to dissagree and that different system specs will always change the outcome.
i will shut my gob then and c u guys in another discusion
maybe i will have better success on another subject
lol, nobody is necessarily wrong, im just telling you my results, and backing up AMD, they seem to be kicking intel's butt here as of late, even though the clock speed is going up at intel, the horsepower is going up at AMD. Intel has a P4 running at 2 GHz and AMD has an Athlon running at 1.4GHz. From running both of them it looks like the P4 is like a mustang running at 5000 RPMs and the Athlon is like a ferarri at 3500 RPMs. Which do you think will actually go faster? The clock speed doesnt make so much of a difference as the actual processing speed.
Like - 370Quote:
Originally posted by Megatron
Here are my results for InStr() vs Like. Add it to a Form with a TextBox and a CommandButton. The results will be printed in the debug window.
I have a 500Mhz, and I get results in the 600s for InStr, and 300s for Like.
InStr - 696
PII 450Mhz - overclocked to 500Mhz
I ran megatron's code (certainly not god - no sucking up here) and saw that it did show InStr to be slower.
So I played around with it a but and I found out that when I assigned the contents of text1 to a string and use that, they came out tied. Then I increased the repetition count from 250 to 1250 and they were still tied. Then when I changed it to 12500, like was faster, but only by one. I ran it again and they switched. When I changed it to 125000, there were still no consistent results showing either to be faster (They were both in the upper 9700's and neither was consistently faster than the other).
So my conclusion is that they are tied in Megtron's code if you assign the contents of Text1 to a string before processing. If you don't, Like does turn out to be faster.
Playing with Megatron's code even more, I noticed that if the exclamation point is at the end of the string, InStr is faster. But if it's at the beginning, they're both lightning quick and tied (The reason why should be obvious).
The difference between InStr and Like is that InStr STOPS ONCE IT FINDS THE STRING. Like DOES NOT. So all the tests where the "!" was in the middle of the string, Like got murdured, but when its at the end, like wins. Thats why it depends on what its used for.:D
didn't bother to read other posts, so they have prolly been mentioned, but use InStr or Like
LOL:D
Skitchen8, go ahead and read some of the posts and see why I think your post is so funny :)
While I do want to agree with you (If you're right, InStr is better), I think you're wrong. When I had the exclamation point at the beginning, both InStr and Like were tied and very fast.Quote:
Originally posted by nishantp
The difference between InStr and Like is that InStr STOPS ONCE IT FINDS THE STRING. Like DOES NOT. So all the tests where the "!" was in the middle of the string, Like got murdured, but when its at the end, like wins. Thats why it depends on what its used for.:D
yeah i did eventuallyQuote:
Originally posted by Tygur
LOL:D
Skitchen8, go ahead and read some of the posts and see why I think your post is so funny :)
BTW to nishantp you can loop InStr to keep on looking