Excel VBA: Finding a String in a String

[Converemon]

Suppose I have two strings: U98 & K11+P46+M67+U98 ..All I need to know is how to return True if the first string is in the second or False if it is not. I have been trying to use this:

str1Mask = curStrCell.Value Like strCell.Value
If str1Mask = True
    'Do whatever
End If

Where curStrCell is the second string and strCell is the first; even though I've tried it in the opposite order. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or suggest a better way to do this?

 

[Marcelo Branco]

See if this helps

VBA InStr and InStrRev

M.

 

[Marcelo Branco]

Or this

Visual Basic InStr

M.

 

[Gavin T]

When comparing strings an asterisk is a wild card. So you would code as follows:

str1Mask = [B][COLOR="#0000FF"]"*"[/COLOR][/B] & curStrCell.Value & [B][COLOR="#0000FF"]"*"[/COLOR][/B] Like strCell.Value

 

[Converemon]

My apologies, I feel as if I didn't make my problem as clear as it could've been. There are five columns of the substrings that must either match the parent string or be empty. If even one substring does not match the whole statement must be False. So basically if "U98, K54, L21, "", "" " can be found in "L21+V06+K54+U98+M67" then it should return True. But, it could also be "!U98, K54, !L21, "", "" " which would return False because of the "!". However, I think my biggest problem is that it could be "!M43, !U67, "", "", "" " against "L21+V06+K54+U98+M67" because these strings are not found in the parent string but the statement is still True. I hope this makes things more clear as I've been trying to use "Like" and "InStr" in a large variety of ways. Thanks.

Also, I have tried to implement both Gavin's and Marcelo's techniques with no success, yet.