Wildcard for one OR more digits?

[giffordpinchot]

Hello, I'm trying to use wildcards to filter for records that contain a date somewhere within the string.

I'm using Like "*#.##.##*" which works for dates that have a day of the months >10, but what about those under?

Well, Like "*#.#.##*" only works for those with the day of month <10. Is there a wildcard character for "one or more digits"?

Also, the above example excludes Oct. - Dec. for the same reason.

help!

Thanks,
Gifford

 

[neileg]

You obviously realise that storing data like this causes searching problems!

You could OR the criteria:
Like "*#.##.##*" OR Like "*#.#.##*" OR Like "*##.##.##*" OR Like "*##.#.##*"

 

[giffordpinchot]

You obviously realise that storing data like this causes searching problems!

You could OR the criteria:
Like "*#.##.##*" OR Like "*#.#.##*" OR Like "*##.##.##*" OR Like "*##.#.##*"

Yup, that'll work. Thanks. But isn't there a cleaner way for future reference?

Yes, I understand the problem with storing the date that way, that's why I'm extracting them now before there are too many of them. My application evolves!!!

Thanks...

 

[neileg]

Cleaner way? Given that you are searching for a pattern of numbers within a text field that represent a date, I'd go with anything that works!

 

[Dennisk]

there is a function called isdate() returns true or false

what I have done in the past to parse a string of unknown length containing a date is to
loop though the whole string starting with the 1st four chars and increasing by one until isdate() returns true or I have exhausted the string