[RESOLVED] Isolating text strings from a file

[trisuglow]

This is hideously bad code, but it works on the first example you gave.

Option Explicit
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
  Dim strExample As String
  Dim str1 As String
  Dim str2 As String
  Dim str3 As String
  Dim slash As String
  strExample = "Original problem gets listed, it's usually a fairly short string. XXX Problem gets some sort of update text. XXX Maybe some more update text gets added here. /// Then they close the problem report for that particular entry like this."
  str1 = Left$(strExample, InStr(strExample, "XXX") - 1)
  str2 = Mid$(strExample, InStr(strExample, "XXX") + 3, InStrRev(strExample, "XXX") - (InStr(strExample, "XXX") + 3))
  If InStr(strExample, "///") > InStr(strExample, "\\\") Then
    slash = "///"
  Else
    slash = "\\\"
  End If
  str3 = Right$(strExample, Len(strExample) - InStr(strExample, slash) - 2)
  Debug.Print str1
  Debug.Print str2
  Debug.Print str3
End Sub

Also works for example in post #3 (with the last XXX removed).