Like operator acts diff vs in VB6

[DaveBo]

In VB.NET using the "Like" operator to compare 2 strings gives me a different result now, as compared to in VB6.

Is this a bug?

e.g. ("aza" Like "*a*z*") = False !!!
yet, ("az" Like "*a*z*") = True (as I would expect)

Incidentally, I tried doing a search here for "Like" and the search engine didn't like that as a keyword.

Any ideas? Thanks, DaveBo

[DaveBo]

FWIW, I tried this with both Option Compare Binary and Text - no difference.

I'm convinced this is a BUG!

Not a big one maybe, but it did bite me yesterday when I copied one of my more simple and vanilla VB6 routines into a .NET program and it gave me new and wonderfully unexpected results (Never trust a computer!)

I always used to say "the best thing about computers is they can do the same task faithfully millions of times ... and 2+2 will always equal 4"

Now I long to take my PC out into a field and use my new peripheral sledge hammer on it.
Anyone see the movie "Office Space" and the copy machine "incident"?

DaveBo out

[Graff]

I've never used the like operator in either so I'm not 100% sure what the problem is but I know an easy solution. Instead of using Like use the RegEx objects.

^.a.z.$

that is the regular expression that will match *a*z* where * is any single character:

aaaza = true
baiza = true
bbaza = false
dadzdd = false

a breakdown of the expression:
^ - match beginning
. - match any single character
a - match only lowercase a
z - match only lowercase z
$ - match end

if you wanted to match both upper and lowercase you would do the following:
^.[aA].[zZ].$


Here's an excellent site on RegEx in general:
http://www.regular-expressions.info/

[sixfeetsix]

It is weird...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de.../vaoprlike.asp

[kleinma]

its the first * in the match pattern that is causing it. I don't have a reason why, it is possible to be a bug.