Question

I use Excel VBA and the following method to search a string in html files, and replace it with the same string after adding bold tag.

FindAndReplace ("C:\xxx.htm", "hello world", "<b>hello world</b>")

Private Sub FindAndReplace(filePath As String, findWhat As String, replaceWith As String)

Dim nextFileNum As Long
Dim oldFileContents As String
Dim newFileContents As String
Dim textFileTypes() As String
Dim fileExtension As String

Dim sFileName As String
Dim iFileNum As Integer
Dim sBuf As String
Dim strFound As Integer

  If Len(Dir(filePath)) = 0 Then
    Exit Sub
  End If

  nextFileNum = FreeFile

  Open filePath For Input As #nextFileNum
  oldFileContents = Input$(LOF(nextFileNum), #nextFileNum)
  Close #nextFileNum

  newFileContents = Replace(oldFileContents, findWhat, replaceWith)

  nextFileNum = FreeFile

  Open filePath For Output As #nextFileNum
  Print #nextFileNum, newFileContents
  Close #nextFileNum
End Sub

The problem I am facing is the function won;t find the string if it splits in between because of the html source code line break.

For example, the string is found if the code is:

<p>hi hola hello world</p>

but it is not found if the code is:

<p>hi hola hello 
world</p>

Is there any other VBA method that I can use to search and replace text, or some functionality can be added to the above code so that it ignores the line break in between.

Answer 1

Try using a variation of:

Function RemoveCarriageReturns(SourceString As String) As String

    Dim s As String

    'strip out CR and LF characters together
    s = Replace(SourceString, vbCrLf, "")

    'just in case, remove them one at a time
    s = Replace(s, Chr(13), "")
    s = Replace(s, Chr(10), "")

    RemoveCarriageReturns = s

End Function

The ASCII characters 13 and 10 are the carriage return and line feed characters.