Question

I’m attempting to load text files in to a database line by line, I cannot use a standard import method as the breakdown of the file means that each line has a different number of columns, however it is thankfully comma separated.

I’m attempting to use the ‘Split’ function so that I may extract certain information from each line, unfortunately any text fields are ” ” enclosed and some will contain comma’s within the specified text.

Is it possible to use the Split function and ignore any comma’s that fall within enclosed text, if not then I’m happy to write a custom function but is it possible to determine if a text string is enclosed by ” ” ?

Thanks & Kind Regards,

Matt.

Answer 1

Many thanks mwolfem I’m sorry to say I haven’t tested your code yet but in my case I’m looking to pick certain values from my string without printing the whole line, however after a little more research I have a working solution for anyone else who is struggling with this problem, is as follows:

Create this first function in a module:

Public Function DelimConvertor(varInput As Variant, strDelim As String, strQualifier As String) As Variant

Const strStart = "Ã" 'Ascii 195, or any other Ascii you are unlikely to encounter
Const strEnd = "ž" 'Ascii 158, or any other Ascii you are unlikely to encounter
Const strNewDelim = "§" 'Ascii 167, or any other Ascii you are unlikely to encounter

Dim lngi        As Long
Dim strChar     As String
Dim flgStart    As Boolean
Dim varOutput   As Variant

'Format the string so we can distinguish the fields

If Left(varInput, 1) = strQualifier Then
varInput = strStart & Right(varInput, Len(varInput) - 1)
End If

If Right(varInput, 1) = strQualifier Then
varInput = Left(varInput, Len(varInput) - 1) & strEnd 
End If

varInput = Replace(varInput, strDelim & strQualifier, strDelim & strStart)

varInput = Replace(varInput, strQualifier & strDelim, strEnd & strDelim)

'Loop through and format the rest of the string

For lngi = 1 To Len(varInput)

strChar = Mid(varInput, lngi, 1)

Select Case strChar

Case strStart

flgStart = True

Case strEnd

flgStart = False

Case Else

If flgStart Then

varOutput = varOutput & strChar

ElseIf strChar = strDelim Then

varOutput = varOutput & strNewDelim

Else

varOutput = varOutput & strChar

End If

End Select

Next

'Return the cleansed stream that can now be used with the Split function

DelimConvertor = varOutput

End Function

And you then then use it during a file import with something like the following:

Public Function Test()

Dim fso         As New FileSystemObject
Dim ts          As TextStream
Dim strArray()  As String

Set ts = fso.OpenTextFile("C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\test.txt", ForReading)

strArray = Split(DelimConvertor(ts.ReadLine, ",", """"), "§")

'Obtain your desired field here e.g. strArray(0)

ts.Close

End Function