How do I get regex support in excel via a function, or custom function?

Posted by blunders on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by blunders
Published on 2010-12-29T18:51:06Z Indexed on 2010/12/29 18:54 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 150

Filed under:

regex

|

excel

|

vba

It appears that regex (as in regular expressions) is not supported in excel, except via VBA. Is this so, and is it is, are there any "open source" custom VBA functions that support regex. In this case I'm looking to extract complex pattern within a string, but any implementation of a custom VBA function that expose support of regex within the function itself would be of use. If you know of semi-related function such as the IS function, feel feel to comment, though I'm really looking for a full regular expression implementation that is exposed via functions. Might even be open to a pay to use add-in if the implementation is good.

If you have questions, please comment.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More

Related posts about excel

Excel error "This workbook contains Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 modules"

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a workbook that was protected via the Protect Workbook feature. It was sent to someone else to modify. When they sent it back, it was unprotected and when I try to reprotect it I get this error, "This workbook contains Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 modules. If you would like to… >>> More
Open excel 2007 excel files and save as 97-2003 formats in VBA

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a weird situation where I have a set of excel files, all having the extension .xls., in a directory where I can open all of them just fine in Excel 2007. The odd thing is that I cannot open them in Excel 2003, on the same machine, without opening the file first in 2007 and going and saving… >>> More
Creating Excel or Excel compatible Spreadsheets on the server side in C#

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'd like to make server-side excel compatible spreadsheets that maybe use OpenXML or a structured data format. I've used Office Interop before to generate Excel spreadsheets, but those apps run on a PC that has office installed. For this web project I'm building, the server doesn't have office installed… >>> More
vba access values from excel workbook from another excel workbook

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Any ideas why this code will not work? Workbooks.Open Filename:="C:\a.xls" Workbooks("a.xls").Activate Worksheets("b").Select Dim OutputArray(10, 10) OutputArray(1, 1) = Workbooks("c.xls").Worksheets("worksheet_otherthan_default").Select.Range(A1).Value I'm trying to run a macro in one file (unnamed… >>> More
Excel workbook event order and usage when closing Excel

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Given the following workbook events: BeforeClose BeforeSave Please tell me: - The firing order in the case of multiple workbooks alreay opened (wb1, wb2 and wb3 are opened in this order) and the user closes Excel. You can assume all 3 needs saving. - What happen if user cancels one of the saving… >>> More