Advanced String Functions for VB Portland OR

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Originally published at Internet.com

Last week, we looked at the basic string functions, and some of their applications. This week, we will look at the more advanced string functions, and put them into use.

LTrim$, RTrim$, Trim$

These are the first functions that we will look at this week. They only just fall into the advanced category. They are used to remove preceding and trailing spaces from strings. For example: mystring = " Hello! " LTrim$(mystring) contains "Hello! " Rtrim$(mystring) contains " Hello!" Trim$(mystring) contains "Hello!" It is equal to LTrim$(RTrim$(mystring))

This function is particularly useful for API functions, which often return strings with spaces preceding and trailing the string.

Syntax: LTrim(string) RTrim(string) Trim(string)

Asc

This function returns the ASCII character code for a character. This is particularly useful for something that encodes passwords: you could take 1 from the character code, just as a simple code. Asc("A") returns 65 Asc("A happy elephant") returns 65 (it takes the first character only)

Syntax:

Asc(string)

Format$

To explain this function in detail would need a lot more room than this quick round up of advanced string functions allows. So, I will just touch on some of its functionality. There is lots of information in the help file about it, so try looking there for more in-depth information.

Format(123.4, "#####.##") returns "123.4"
Format(123.4, "00000.00") returns "00123.40"
Format(123456.789, "###,###.#") returns "123,456.7"
Format(#07:14:23#, "hh:mm AM/PM") returns "07:18 AM"