VBA Extracting Date from String

tabletopjoe

New Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2018
Messages
6
Hello, I am creating a macro that regularizes file names and I'm having difficulty assigning the dates within filenames to a variable. The file names look something like this:

"Grants Report S-17, First Response, dated 3-14-2015"

Alternatively they might look like this:

"3-14-2015 1st Response from Mike to Grants Report S-17"

And so forth. The only piece I'm missing is how to dynamically extract dates from the filenames. Their format varies a bit, but I can work around those variations and I am just looking for ways to identify MMDDYYYY out of any particular string and assign that date to a variable. The resulting DateVariable is concatenated along with the rest of the filename's pieces like this:

Code:
ResultName = ReportNum & ResponseNum & " " & ResponseSource & " " & DateVariable

Any tips & tricks are most appreciated!
 

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Welcome to the Board!

So, will the date always appear at the very beginning or the very end?
 
Upvote 0
Is the date always in the same format?
 
Upvote 0
Hello tabletopjoe,

This VBA macro will return the first occurrence of date string in the format you have shown from a string of text.

Code:
Function ParseDate(ByVal Text As String) As Variant


    Dim Match  As Object
    Dim RegExp As Object
    
        Set RegExp = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
        
        RegExp.Pattern = "(\d{1,2}\-\d{1,2}\-\d{4})"
        Set Match = RegExp.Execute(Text)
        
        If Match.Count > 0 Then ParseDate = Match(0).SubMatches(0)
        
End Function
 
Upvote 0
Hello tabletopjoe,

This VBA macro will return the first occurrence of date string in the format you have shown from a string of text.

Code:
Function ParseDate(ByVal Text As String) As Variant


    Dim Match  As Object
    Dim RegExp As Object
    
        Set RegExp = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
        
        RegExp.Pattern = "(\d{1,2}\-\d{1,2}\-\d{4})"
        Set Match = RegExp.Execute(Text)
        
        If Match.Count > 0 Then ParseDate = Match(0).SubMatches(0)
        
End Function

Hi Leith, thank you very much for your macro example. I will be able to dig into this tomorrow and I'll be sure to let you know if that was the solution I needed.

Best regards
 
Upvote 0
Hi Leith, thank you very much for your macro example. I will be able to dig into this tomorrow and I'll be sure to let you know if that was the solution I needed.

Best regards

It looks like this Regular Expression pattern matching is a very powerful toolset, and precisely what I was looking for - in this context as well as another problem I was tinkering with. Thanks again!
 
Upvote 0

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