String functions in vbscript

Below is the list of string functions in vb script

1. lcase
2. ucase
3. len
4. left
5. right
6. mid
7. ltrim
8. rtrim
9. trim
10. replace
11. strreverse
12. string
13. Instr
14. Instrrev
15. strcomp

We are going to have a look at each String function mentioned above.

Substring Extraction functions

Some of the commonly used string manipulation functions are given below.

• right
• mid
• left

All of the above functions are frequently used when performing any string operations in vbscript.

All of the above functions extract the part of the string / Sub string.

Right function returns the fixed number of characters from right side of the string.

Left function returns the fixed number of characters from left side of the string.

Mid function can be used to get the characters/ sub string from the left, right or middle part of the string.

Examples -

myString = "Sachin Plays Cricket"

print right(myString,7)  
'will return the 7 characters from the right side of myString    
'Cricket
print left(myString,6)
'will return the 6 characters from the left side of myString
'Sachin
print mid(myString,8,5)
'will return the 5 characters from the 8th position of myString
'Plays

Syntax -
Second parameter in left and right function tells how many characters to return from the string.
In mid functions there are 2 parameters. First parameter tells from which position of the string we have to get the characters and second parameter tells how many characters to return.

Converting Case of Strings

We can convert the string from lower case to upper case and vice versa using ucase and lcase functions in VBScript.

str = "We are learning strings in VBScript"
Msgbox lcase(str)
'It will print - we are learning strings in vbscript

Msgbox ucase(str)

'It will print - WE ARE LEARNING STRINGS IN VBSCRIPT

Replacing part of the string

Replace function can be used to replace the part of the string with other string. Syntax of replace is given below.

Replace(mainString,stringToFind,replaceString[,start_Index[,Replace_count[,comparison_mode]]])

More information on the parameters is given below.

1. mainString - This is the original string
2. stringToFind - This is the string which will be searched and replaced
3. replaceString  - This is the string which will replace other string in the original string
4. start_Index   - Index position of the original string from where you have to search it
5. Replace_Count - How many occurrences of the string you want to replace
6. Comparison_Mode - Binary (Case Sensitive) or textual comparison (Case Insensitive). by default it is binary comparison.

Examples -

mainString = "Sachin plays cricket"
msgbox replace(mainString,"Sachin","Arjun")
'Prints Arjun plays cricket.

Finding the length of the string

Len function is used to find the length of the string.

Example -

mainString = "Sachin plays cricket"
msgbox len(mainString)
'Prints 20

Trim functions of the string

Trim functions are used to remove the blank spaces from the beginning and ending of the string.
There are 3 functions in this category.

1. ltrim - removes  blank spaces from left side of the string
2. rtrim - removes  blank spaces from right side of the string
3. trim -  removes  blank spaces from both left and right side of the string

Example -

mainString = "  Sachin plays cricket  "
msgbox ltrim(mainString)
'Prints  "Sachin plays cricket  "

msgbox rtrim(mainString)

'Prints  "  Sachin plays cricket"

msgbox trim(mainString)
'Prints  "Sachin plays cricket"

Reverse the string in VBScript

We can use strreverse function to reverse the string in VBScript.

Example  - 

mainString = "Sachin"
msgbox strreverse(mainString)
'Prints  "nihcaS"

String function in VBScript

We can use string function to get the specified character n times.

Example  - 

msgbox String(5,"*")
'prints *****

Instr function in VBScript

We can use instr function to find the substring in given string. Searching happens from the beginning of the string.

Syntax of Instr

InStr([start,]string1,string2[,compare])
msgbox instr(1,"sagaar","g")
'prints 3

Instrrev function in VBScript

We can use instrrev function to find the substring in given string. Searching happens from the end of the string but the position of the character is counted from the beginning of the string.

Syntax of Instrrev

InStrRev(string1,string2[,start[,compare]])
msgbox instrrev("sagaar","g")
'prints 3

Comparing 2 strings in VBScript

We can use StrComp function to compare two strings.

The StrComp function returns the values based upon comparison result.

1. -1 (if string1 < string2)
2. 0 (if string1 = string2)
3. 1 (if string1 > string2)
4. Null (if string1 or string2 is Null)

The syntax of the StrComp function is ->

StrComp (string1, string2 [, comparison_mode])

The last parameter determines whether comparison is binary or textual. By default it is binary comparison (Case Sensitive).

msgbox strcomp("Amol","Sagar") 'prints -1..since ascii value of A is less than that of S
msgbox strcomp("sagar","sagar") 'prints 0
msgbox strcomp("sagar","Amol") 'prints 1